The Librarian Chronicles
by OnixMoon
Summary: "Life is a chaotic system, change one variable the results become unpredictable" And one fateful encounter with a powerful Librarian has changed all the variables in Naruto's life. Witness the rise, and trip, and rise again, and sit back down because getting up too quickly does weird things to the head, and eventual ascendancy of UZU-flippin'-MAKI NARUTO!
1. Chapter 1

Naruto paused to analyze the situation. The enemy force consisted of several genin, a few chunin, a jonin, and much larger contingent of irate civilians. Down the road to the right, half of the civilians stood panting, to the left the rest of the them were glaring daggers. The ninja had taken the rooftops so there would be no escape that way. Where they had cornered him there were no alleys to cut through, and all the doors were closed and -with the boy's luck- locked. Advancing slowly, the civilians whittled down any hopes that the blond had of escape. The civilians, at least, moved slowly because of the chase that the boy had lead them on. The ninja because they were well aware of his particular tenacity for unexpected maneuvers.

"You really did it this time boy," One of the civilians growled, brandishing a fist. From above one of the Konoha shinobi let fly a kunai. The iron instrument embedded itself in the dusty street inches from Naruto's foot. There was little room to maneuver now, he couldn't run into the crowds without risking being caught by one of the bludgeoning weapons they had. There was no way to climb to the roofs even if that had been a viable plan. "Any last requests?" The man with the club asked.

"Oh come on!" The boy yelled exasperate, "What did I do?"

"You stole from me!" "You cheated us!" "You're a plague upon us!" "You killed the 4th!" "You're the reason that my children died!" The answers came fast and angry like they had been bottled up for far too long, fermenting and growing richer with hatred. The boy, seven years old, felt tears burn his eyes as the words burned his ears. He didn't know why they hated him, he was hungry and no one would give him anything to eat. He had seen other kids snatch a piece of food from the vendors, he had seen grown men hide things in their pockets as they walked out of stores. None of those people had ever been chased around town; no one had ever threatened them with clubs and kunai. He couldn't understand how they could hate him this much. He could feel their hate, it came from their eyes and burned like hot coals. Each and every one of their eyes flared like little suns of hatred. No one ever looked at him - for long at least- when the old man came to visit him, but the moment he left, Naruto was alone again, facing the masks of hatred that stared at him.

Then, without warning or signal, one of the men who didn't wear the metal forehead protectors charged. It was like they had all been waiting for somebody else to make the first move. But that one man caused a crack in the dam, and the wall that held them back shattered. Everyone rushed forward. They grew bigger, fueled by hate, bigger and bigger until they were all giants that could crush him under their feet. He looked around, hoping, praying that one of the ninja with masks would rush down and save him. He couldn't see them. The boy realized he had used them up, all of his chances were gone now. He was going to die.

"Seal of the Underworld: Living statues." A cold calm voice spoke through the hatred.

Everybody stopped. Frozen, like they were statues. The boy turned to see where the voice that had stopped the men had come from. Standing in a doorway stood his savior, one hand shoved outward, a character burned onto his palm. Naruto felt his legs give out and he collapsed to the ground. The man seemed to take no notice of the boy as he looked around at the people who had been chasing him. The tall old man's face hardened, his lips turned down to hard points of disgust. "ANBU," He said like he was calling a disobedient dog. Suddenly, the men in cloaks and masks appeared in front of him. "I thought your duty was to protect this child," he pointed a finger at the shivering seven year old boy, "Not to watch him die by the hands of his fellow humans. I can assure you that the Hokage will hear of this."

"We apologize, Hon-san, we were going to intervene just as you arrived," One of the masked men muttered, turning away from the elder ninja.

"I'm sure you were." Hon sounded thoroughly unconvinced. The ANBU disappeared and the old man turned to Naruto. "Now," he said kindly, finally taking notice of the boy before him, "can you tell me why these men were chasing you?" His voice was sweet, and true. Not like those people who only said nice things to him when the old man was around. Those people would speak sweetly but Naruto could hear underneath the nice voice that they were straining to be so. Those people didn't mean what they said at all. They were just saying those thing because the old man was there. This man didn't sound like those people. His voice was dark and old, but very kind, and he meant what he said. He saw so different than the people he had frozen. The statues were still looking at him with hate filled eyes, yes some were afraid now, but most were still very hateful.

"I-it was only an a-apple." Naruto couldn't keep the tears back anymore. That was all he could say before he broke down into sobs. He had never cried before, not for the old man, not for the nice people who gave him ramen, and most certainly not for those people who burned him with their eyes. He had stopped crying long ago. But here he was again, sobbing into the knees of some stranger he didn't know, but who had just saved him from certain death. Naruto felt a worn hand rest itself on him. The man was saying something kind to him, he couldn't hear exactly what the man was saying over his own sobs, but he could tell it was kind and that he meant it.

Hon straightened up and turned to look at the crowd to his left, then the people to his right, and finally to the group of ninjas frozen above his head. "An apple. You chased this boy and intended to kill him for an apple?"

"But he's got that-" one woman had somehow broken free from whatever spell the man had put over her.

She was starting to spit out a word that began with d- when Hon stopped her. "If you value your life you would be wise not to finish that sentence. You know the rules. And regardless of what this boy is or what curse may have been placed upon him, I can assure you: right now you are all more demons than this boy." The man bent down and picked the sobbing boy from his ground. "Come on Naruto," he whispered in the boy's ear, "let's go inside for a little bit." As he walked back through the door Hon noticed that several more men and women were breaking free from his seal. "Hmm." He mused to himself, "I'll need to look at the binding methods again, they shouldn't be breaking free for another thirty seconds."

The entry way into the building was calm, that was the best way the boy could describe it. Through teary eyes, Naruto could see that the entry way led to a much larger room around the corner. He could see shelves but he couldn't tell much more. The kind old man set him down and carefully worked off the boy's shoes. He set the dirty, ragged, too-small pair neatly to the side. Slipping on two very small white slippers, the man then turned to his own shoe. Naruto was running out of tears by this time and his sobs had mellowed into sighs and hiccups. Once the man was finished with his shoes - his own pair of very clean, but very old shoes, sat next to Naruto's - he turned and picked him up again. Naruto looked over the man's shoulders at the two pairs of shoes as he was carried into the bigger room. Looking at the old man's shoes next to his Naruto felt ashamed, sorry for the clean shoes because they had to sit next to his. He had found those shoes in the dumpster almost a year ago. Back then, they had been only a little stained with only a few holes and had been too big for the blond, but they had been warm, so he took them. Now they were less clothe than they were dirt. Dust had changed the once green fabric into a grubby tan. Those nice clean shoes that didn't deserve to sit next to his. They probably hated every second of it. They must be afraid that the dirt and stains from his shoes might seep over into them. Or maybe not, Naruto thought, the shoes belonged to this old man who had saved him and was being kind to him, maybe the old man's shoes were being kind to his dirty torn shoes.

The room that the old man brought Naruto into was big. He set Naruto down on a table and smiled. "There, there," He said his voice warm and sweet, "you are safe in here. I promise that no one is going to try to hurt you in here."

Naruto whipped his eyes, trying to dislodge the last of his hot tears. "Where - what is this place?" The blond hiccupped. The place really was like none other he had been to. It was a huge room with a couple tables and chairs but mostly there were shelves. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves stacked high with books and scrolls and stacks of paper. Everything seemed so organized. It was like Jiji's room, but more organized. The desk on the far end of the room only had one giant scroll on it, not like the mountains of papers that Jiji had. It was quiet and calm and peaceful. The walls seemed to be curious but nice too. Everything seemed to be smiling with the same smile that the old man had. They said 'it is safe here, stay as long as you want. Leave when you need to, we'll be right here when you need us again.'

The old man chuckled snapping Naruto's eyes back to him, "This is a library."

"Wha- what's a li-li-library?" Naruto asked. His chest felt funny when he talked, and something was getting caught in his throat. It felt weird to stop crying. But the old man didn't laugh at him when he couldn't get the words to come out smoothly. Instead he pulled out one of the chairs that was hiding under the table and sat down.

"A library," he started. He seemed happy to answer his question Naruto realized. Most people wouldn't talk to him and when they finally answered him (if he bugged them enough) they were always short and unhelpful answers. No one was ever happy to answer his question. Some people answered quickly enough, but they still sounded mean and hateful. Not this man, he answered Naruto happily. "A library is a place where we keep books and scrolls for people to read. There are thousands of volumes, of books, in this library about almost any subject imaginable. People come in all the time to read these books."

"But... why? Why do people like books. Books are bo-boring." Naruto managed to get most of the sentence through without his voice jumping. The man laughed, not a mean laugh, but it still mad Naruto angry to be laughed at.

"Well yes, I suppose when compared with some other things, reading could be considered boring. But I don't think it is. I mean books are like conversations, like talking with people. They have all sorts of things to tell you. You can hear a story, or they can teach how to do something new. There are so many things you can learn with books. If there are a thousand books those are a thousand different conversations you can have. Okay, so the books aren't great if you want to talk back to them, but if that's the case you can just write your own. If you have a question that one book won't answer you can always find another book. You can never hurt a books feelings if you don't want to listen to it. I mean most books are written by people who are not alive anymore. I mean look at this scroll," The old man picked up a scroll that had been lying on the table, he had probably been reading it before he saved the boy, "this book lets me talk with Namikaze Minato, our fourth Hokage, and he has been dead for seven years."

Naruto's eyes widened. "You can talk to dead people?"

"Not exactly, but dead people can talk to me. When I read what they wrote here then it is like they are talking to me. Teaching me things I didn't know before."

The hiccups were gone and the funny feeling in Naruto's chest was forgotten. Excitement and ideas were filling him up, making him lighter than air. He jumped off the table and looked up at the old man in awe. A man who could talk to dead people, and not just one or two but thousands, and he could freeze people like statues, and he was kind, and nice. To Naruto he glowed. This man, he decided, was the coolest, most awesome man ever in all the world. "Did you learn how to freeze people from books too?" Naruto asked excitedly. If he could find the book that could teach him how to do that, he would never have to worry about being chased ever again, maybe he could even get something more that an apple from that mean old lady's cart. The old man shook his head, "No." Naruto felt deflated. "But I did learn how to do that by books."

"Huh?" Naruto was confused. A book didn't teach to freeze people, but he learned how to freeze people by books. It didn't make any sense! He was talking in circles. He was making fun of him. Just when he thought he had found the greatest person ever, he turned out to be no better than everyone else.

"You looked confused. Let me explain, there was no one book that taught me the 'Living Statues' seal. But because I read enough books they taught me how to make it myself."

"Oh..." Naruto paused and thought about that. "Oh! So it's like if you don't have a recipe for ramen, but if you look at enough cupped ramen you can guess what goes into real ramen. Right?"

The man laughed, but this time Naruto didn't feel as bad. He could tell that the man wasn't trying to make fun of him, he had just said something that the man thought was funny. That was okay, it was nice to see the old man smile, he guessed. "An interesting analogy but fundamentally correct, I suppose." Seven year old Naruto didn't understand what the old man had said, and it must have shown on his face. The old man reached out and ruffled the boy's blond hair, "Yes Naruto, pretty much like that."

"Cool! So which books taught you how to do that stuff?"

"But, Naruto. I thought books were boring."

"Not when they teach you to do awesome stuff, like freeze people! You even froze the ninja! That kind of stuff isn't boring at all!"

"I see," The old man stood up and looked around the room. He took one step towards one shelf, then paused. He took another step toward a different shelf. He was about to take a third step to yet another shelf when he stopped. "Naruto," He asked, "how well do you actually know how to read?"

The question hit the boy hard. Truthfully the only things he knew how to read were the menu at the ramen stand and the instructions on cup ramen. If he was really honest that was only because he knew what they said already. He didn't actually read them, he just remembered what had been said before. There were a couple characters that he remembered from this or that, like stop, or go, cold, and hot. He really couldn't read. And if he couldn't read, the books were pointless he realized. He had never liked books because he could never read them, if they had pictures he could kind of guess what they were about, but most books didn't so he would just make up stories using the characters like little pictures. Some of the characters were really hard to do though, so most of the time even that wasn't fun. "Not at all." Naruto hung his head and answered.

"Ah, well then, how about we start there? Okay?"

Naruto nodded, ready to learn how to talk to the people in the books and scrolls.

0o0o0

Five years later

"Oi, brat! I know you're in here!" Haruno Sakura nearly kicked down the door to the building. The out of the way place was known to be her blond, orange clothed targets favorite haunts. Under normal circumstances Sakura did her level best to stay as far away from this place as possible. She had had her hair changed into enough colors, thank you very much. She could do without finding another bucket of hair dye dumped on her. The concoctions that the notorious prankster cooked up took weeks to wash out and she was pretty sure there were still a few bits of orange from the last time left in her pink hair. Honestly! Her hairdresser had asked who had done the dyes though, apparently they were pretty good, but that didn't stop her from beating the tar out of the whiskered boy the next time she saw him.

In Sakura's opinion the world would be a calmer, quieter, safer place if Naruto didn't exist. Even her parents wished that the boy would disappear sometimes. They had told her not to associate with the blond, but really, once she met the kid, she hadn't needed another warning. He was loud, obnoxious, disruptive, crude, always trying to get a date with her, and just a general nuisance. She didn't know what kind of deal the guy here had with the kid, but it had to have something to do with the fact that this was the only building in Konoha that hadn't been hit with one of the boy's elaborate pranks.

"Iruka-sensei wants me to bring you today's notes because you missed AGAIN! Seriously, how do you expect to ever graduate from the academy if you never show up." She marched up to the orange wearing blond and slammed down the papers that their teacher had asked her to bring. She had wanted to tell the man that she wanted nothing to do with the boy and had better things to do with her time (stalking Sasuke among them) than delivering notes to the annoying brat who, despite claims that he would become the next Hokage, did not seem to care about his class work whatsoever. "Your taijutsu sucks, your class scores are terrible, and you can't even pull off a clone! Geez! Why don't you just drop out all ready. There's no reason for you even to show up tomorrow at all you know! You'll never pass the test. I don't even see why Ir-"

Naruto put down the brush he had been using and turned to Sakura, "Shhhh! This," he hissed, "is a library. Can't you be quiet."

Frankly, Sakura was stunned. She had never seen the blond so serious before. True she had never visited this particular building before, so she didn't know if he was like this when he was here. Heck she hadn't even known this was a library. Yes, given she was a self professed book worm (when she wasn't a raving fan girl or beating the living daylights of her blond classmate) but she had spent most of her time at the big library near the Hokage Monument. She hadn't even know this library existed. Or that Naruto came here... or read books... or used a brush... Come to think of it why was the kid who turned in all of his test with doodle or rants about him becoming Hokage sitting at a table with a brush, ink, and several complex scrolls lined out in front of him? More importantly however, why was he shushing her? She was being told to be quiet by the loudest kid to ever enter the academy! It was an outrage! "Why you!"

Sakura was not a violent person. Much... Actually she was a very violent person, she just didn't like showing her violent side to the public. But seeing as there was apparently no one around, she felt like she could indulge a bit. If there was one thing Naruto was good for, it was stress relief. His head made this great sound when it hit the table. A good loud satisfying _thunk_. It almost made walking across town to find the brat worth it... almost. "Ouch, Sakura-chan that hurt!" When Naruto lifted his head from the desk, she could see that the ink he had been writing with hasn't dried yet so a copy of whatever it was he was working on what now printed across his face. "Good, and don't call me Sakura-chan!"

"But Sakura-chan~" Naruto was trying to look cute. It didn't work. In her honest, pink-haired opinion, it just looked kind of gross, albeit a bit comical with the characters running across his face. In the end all it earned the boy was another whack on the head.

"Ahh, are you one of Naruto-kun's friends?" A quiet voice jarred Sakura out of her musings about how best to keep the blond quiet. An elderly man walked out from behind the scroll shelves and approached. The man wore a Konoha protector around his neck, but as far as Sakura could tell the man hadn't been a ninja in years. He looked... old. Even compared to the Hokage he looked old. Underneath his arms the man was carrying several ancient looking scrolls. When he saw the blond that she had just been pummeling on the floor out cold, he paused for a second. "Is there something wrong?"

"Um, no. I'm just a classmate of Naruto's and our sensei asked me to bring him today's notes so that he didn't fall behind. I was also to remind him that tomorrow is the graduation exam so that he shows up."

The old man smiled and nodded, "I see. I'm sure Naruto-kun thanks you." Said boy waved half heartedly from the floor and grinned. The man set down the scrolls he had been carrying and inspected the work that Naruto had been doing. Slowly the boy pulled himself back up onto the chair. If anyone asked her what she saw then, no one would have believed her, but Naruto - the worst student in the class, Dead Last, unable to sit through a lecture, hyperactive moron - looked... She knew that expression, equal parts fear, anticipation, giddiness; exactly how she felt whenever she turned in a test to Iruka-sensei. As the man looked over the scroll Uzumaki Naruto looked scholarly.

"Naruto, your declarations are too large. It would take far too much chakra for this seal to store even a single kunai. Not to mention that the compression method that you're using, doesn't If you tried storing something smaller than a large sword you would end up with too much space in your array leaving to many sections blank. Not only are those chakra sinks, they could cause spontaneous storage failure. You wouldn't want to be walking through town when the whole seal bursts would you? You need a null-void terminator and smaller initial declarations. Remember you can always create additional re-declarations. See?" The man indicated a portion of one of the scrolls laid out before Naruto.

The blond nodded thoughtfully, "I was trying to streamline the store-start method to cut down on the chakra formation byproduct."

"Cut down the smoke, I see. It's a good idea, but for now try to focus on maximizing chakra efficiency. Okay."

"Okay."

Sakura couldn't believe it, or understand it, but mostly she couldn't believe it. He was listening to someone and taking their advice. The kid wouldn't listen to anyone at the academy. She had never, EVER seen the kid look so thoughtful, or take "you can't" so well. Ignoring the fact that he seemed to have understood what the man was talking about, he was working on seals! SEALS! They had barely covered basics of seals at the academy. Fuuinjutsu wasn't expected of ninja until they were chunin at least.

Maybe, just maybe... the idea felt wrong in Sakura's mind. All that Naruto ever would be, all that Naruto ever could be, was a loud mouth pranking idiot, who happened to make good smoke bombs and hair dyes. She had thought for a second that maybe the idiotic blond could have actually been smart! Every cell of her brain had screamed at that idea and brutally murdered it before it could even catch its second breath. She had to get out of here before any more of her sanity was drained by the obvious genjutsu she had been placed under. "Well, see ya' Naruto. Good luck tomorrow," -dead last, she couldn't stop from adding in her mind.

Naruto and Hon watched the pink haired girl leave. The boy turned back to his seal and let the girl go. Despite what other people may have believed he could, in fact, focus. He just, for the most part, chose not to. Really why would he, most everything they taught in the academy he had learned here in Hon-san's already. History was the first thing he had consumed, not exactly because he liked it, but because Hon-san said it would help. He had still been struggling to read when he had sat down to read _"An Account of the Elemental Nations"_ the de facto text book of the academy, and by the end of it he could read pretty well. The library had become something akin to a home since that day when Hon-san had saved him. He felt better and safer here than anywhere else in the city. Except maybe at Ramen Ichiraku, but that was mostly because they had food, something that wasn't allowed in the library.

"Naruto," The old man began quietly, "is there anything you want to talk about." The boy shook his head. Really he didn't want to talk about anything other than his seal right now. He didn't want to think about anything else. He didn't want to, but he was. She was right; he was probably going to fail the exam tomorrow. Actually, probably wasn't going to cut it. Everything she said was right. His grades were terrible, his taijutsu sucked, and he really couldn't pull off a clone to save his life. Replacement, sometimes. Transformation, yes (but it hurt). Clone, no.

"No," he grumbled and picked up his brush again.

Hon nodded and watched the boy roll out a blank section of the scroll and started scrawling out declarations for a new seal. He frowned as the boy stiffly wrote the characters on the paper. "Hmm, I see." Hon went about picking up his scrolls and organizing them on the large scroll on the circulation desk. Calmly the librarian stored them away in the sealing array. All the while watching the blond boy. "Naruto, when do you think I graduated from the Academy?"

Naruto looked up from his work surprised. "I don't know, you're like some kind of genius so... seven?"

The man chuckled and sent a spark of chakra releasing a smaller scroll. "Much older than seven."

"Twelve?"

"Older still."

"Fifteen."

"Even older than fifteen."

"Sixteen."

"Nineteen, Naruto. Nineteen."

"Nineteen!" Naruto's eyes bulged, trying to imagine Hon-san when he was nineteen sitting in a class full of twelve-year-olds.

"Granted," the old man shrugged, and set the scroll he had retrieved in front of the boy "they did put me on the teaching staff after a while, but it took me seven years to pass that test. I'm pretty sure it is the same one they still use."

"But- Wha- I-"Naruto stammered, "But you're a genius at seals! That should have gotten you promoted immediately, right?" Naruto was having trouble seeing the old man, who in many ways was his idol, having so much trouble passing the same test he would probably fail. The old man laughed, and Naruto got a glimpse of just how old the man really was in his eyes. "I wasn't always this good with seals, my boy. I, like you, couldn't perform an adequate Clone technique, and they were more of a stickler on the whole "you must perform this jutsu" back then." Naruto giggled when Hon changed his voice to sound kind of like the old ninja's who came and watched the academy some days.

"Naruto, have you ever wondered why I work so hard at my seals?" Naruto shrugged. "This body of mine cannot control its own chakra. In place, I use these seals to mold my chakra for me. I've learned how to use ink and blood in place of chakra coils, in the process inventing a whole new branch of fuuinjutsu. There is another person in the village with a similar condition to mine, who has chosen to rely purely on taijutsu, alas even that door was not open for me. Many told me that I would never become a ninja, and recommended that I put aside my dreams and pursue other endeavors. But..." He trailed off for a bit, caught in the ages of time between past and present, "what I dreamed night and day about was life as a shinobi. Once, a particular person gifted me with a morsel of very good advice, and... I think I'll bestow onto you that same advice: do whatever you have to do to become what you want to be. Myself, it meant learning how to create a seal that would perform a clone. That, plus my grades, was enough for me to pass. For you, I don't know what the answer is." Hon added after a short pause, "Don't expect me to loan you my clone seal though. I can tell you that is not your answer."

Naruto sat and let everything that the man had said wash over him. He rarely talked about his past, mostly he talked about other people's history. Whenever the man mentioned something about his own life, Naruto knew that he was trying to get an important point across. Hon was about to leave the boy when he spoke up, "Hon-san, how old were you when you became a chunin?"

The man chuckled, "I was over 45 when they finally gave me my vest. but-" he shrugged nonchalantly, "I suppose that I can find some consolation in sweeping the tournament without moving an inch."

0o0o0

Iruka looked out over his class. Some were fidgeting in their seats, some were backing slowly away from the piece of white paper that was set in front of them. Some of the kids refused to even sit down. If the test before them was the scariest thing they faced in their life as ninja, the chunin thought, then they were lucky ninja indeed... or stuck as genin for the rest of their lives. There was five minutes until class was to begin. The last few students were trickling into the classroom, but amongst all the heads present, there was one spiky blond conspicuously absent.

The clock was chiming time when Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja walked into the room. Iruka felt a stab of pride and pain as the boy pulled back a chair in the back. Pride that the boy should stand up to face what would be many people's worst nightmare, and pain because the teacher could easily predict whose name would be on the short list of 'failures.' "Take your seats," Iruka announced, forcing the kids who had not done so to sit down in front of the intimidating sheets of white paper. Iruka spared a quick glance up to the blond on the top row. The boy was obviously nervous, but not trembling in fear or confidently blowing off the situation like the teacher had expected. Around the room there were as many different expressions as there were faces; bored, aloof, eager, and scared out of his or her mind. Iruka smiled at his students: eager Sakura, Choji shoving potato chips into his mouth, Sasuke staring out the window, Shikamaru yawning, Hinata blushing. This would be the last time they come to this room as students- well most of them.

"Please turn your test over and begin. If you do not know an answer, skip it and move on to the next one." And thus it began. No matter how many times this day came it still kind of tugged at the chords in the teacher's heart. These kids, for better or worse, were his. He almost felt like a parent, though in some cases teaching here might prove to be the best argument for celibacy yet. Despite all the time teaching youths here at the Academy there still proved to be children that pushed even his patience. He tried his best to relate to every student, be a friendly presence to turn to in rough times and a stern face when they needed to be set straight. Even so, there seemed to be one or two every year that he couldn't reach, no matter how hard he tried. His eyes flicked over two heads staring out the window, one black, one blond.

"Stop," Iruka announced when the clock flicked ten, "your time is up. Please turn over your paper and wait for one of us to pick it up." To groans and pencils clicking flat against the desks, he and Mizuki began to retrieve the final exam. Iruka had to tear the paper from Kiba who, even after he had announced the end of the test, still wouldn't give up his paper. Shikamaru yawned when his paper was added to the stack, but Ino seemed reluctant to let hers go.

"I didn't cheat, I swear!" A certain obnoxious voice burst out from the top of the room. Iruka turned to see his partner in cri- teaching holding Naruto's paper. "Naruto, I have seen your work. Nothing gives me any reason to expect this. Now if you just tell me from who, or what, you copied these answers from..."

"I didn't copy them from anywhere!"

"Naruto..."

"I didn't!" Mizuki turned away, obviously unconvinced. Slumping back into his chair Naruto glowered at the white haired man. Iruka turned back to his half of the room to pick up the remaining tests. A spit of worry crept into his mind, he had seen many students come and go, some had cheated their way through the exam, he was sure. But rarely did any of those kids make it past the jonin tests. Naruto's life was tenuous enough, the boy reminded Iruka of himself in many ways. He, for one, would have been broken if he had been sent back or dropped. It was worrisome that the notorious prankster would cheat, but it was disturbing that even he would try to cover it up with so obvious a lie. A ninja who tried to use such blatant untruths was bound to have a short carrier.

The next section of the test, the physical portion, went as expected. Iruka watched as each student sparred and threw, checking each for accuracy, confidence, and poise. There were few surprises and most everyone fell into the order predicted in last night's betting pool. Predictable and safe, unlike the written test. When Iruka got a look at the boy's paper, his assessment had been the same as his partner. The first clue had been the penmanship. In all his time teaching he had never seen Naruto write so cleanly. Usually it was an art requiring a great deal of time to decipher the boy's scrawl. Looking out on the yard, Iruka could see that Naruto was trying incredibly hard today. The kid hadn't even burst out ranting about all the things he would change as Hokage all day. It was astoundingly quiet. If Iruka had not known any better he would have guessed somebody had snuck into the academy disguised as the orange-wearing ninja-prospective. No matter how honestly the boy was trying, however, there was no way to excuse that kind of obvious cheating. They had been correct, yes, more correct than any other answer and had shown a great mastery of the information... but it obviously wasn't Naruto.

"Thank you, Naruto. Please wait with the others until everyone else finishes." The blond had done better than the teacher had expected. He had actually managed to hit the target seven times out of ten. A solid number, but when taken with his poor taijutsu and the disqualified test, his chances of passing were still minimal.

When at last the final portion of the test arrived, Iruka was ready for the day to end. Tests, especially ones that took a whole day, were as exhausting for the teacher as they were for the students. "Line up! In order to pass this last section of the exam you will be required to perform the clone technique. When Mizuki-sensei calls your name please make a clone of yourself, it should last at least ten seconds to be considered passable." There was whispering in the ranks as the technique was revealed. No doubt some already knew which technique they would be tested on, but to many it came as a surprise. Iruka looked back to the end of the line, apologetically. "Aburame, Shino."

"Yes." And suddenly there were two of the stoic children.

Iruka swelled with pride as one by one his students multiplied. Haruno Sakura had managed to produce five clones, outshining even the genius Sasuke. Each student in a puff of smoke multiplied themselves, waited ten seconds, and dispelled it again. Finally it came down to just the pair of blonds at the end of the row. "Uzumaki! Naruto" The boy frowned. For a second the whiskered face contorted itself into an alien pose. Not the confident grin nor the brash smile, but a frown of deep and honest concentration. "Clone Technique." Naruto grunted. Where other students had released puffs or wisps of smoke the boy's clone formation was masked behind a solid wall of oily smog. The chakra formation by-product hung in the air for a long time. When it faded no clone was present. One blond haired whiskered kid stood alone in the fog.

"Oh! For the..." Iruka flinched as he felt a surprisingly well developed wave of killing intent burst from the boy, and then abruptly all the energy seemed to drain out of him. The other ninja-prospective was still shivering as the blond walked out of the room.

"Naruto! Wait!" the teacher tried to stop the boy. The boy glanced back over his shoulder, and with one drained, iced eye looked at Iruka. The room thawed out when the boy left, his depression no longer forcing down on their shoulders.

"I'll go and talk to him." Mizuki volunteered putting down his clip board.

Iruka nodded. "Yamanaka Ino."

"Yes!" And there were two long haired blondes.

One orange clad boy sat upon the swing, thinking. He had been here many times before. It was one of the few places he could drop his mask. Here he could frown. Here he could cry. Here he could... The boy sighed thinking about the mask he had worn. He had lost it somewhere today. It had dropped off his face and he couldn't find it anywhere, and he didn't know where to look for it. He wore that smile in defiance to the glares. People tried to ignore him, gave him hate filled looks that would burn for just a second. He had yelled and smiled, trying to get their attention, surprise the hate out of their eyes. Be noticed, be accepted. When he had learned who and what ninja were, how they were respected, he had thought he had found a way to finally clean away those looks of hate.

If he could just be a ninja, he thought... Well, that probably was not going to happen- ever. He couldn't perform clones, couldn't transform regularly, couldn't replace himself with a log most of the time. He couldn't be a ninja, not yet, maybe not ever. Hon-san said he stuck around the Academy until he was nineteen, but seven more years of this, Naruto did not think he could take. Seven more years of lessons that he already knew, seven years of sparring against kids years younger than him, but still better, years of trying and failing that stupid clone technique... it would be hell. If it wasn't for that clone! If he tried hard enough he could switch with the stupid log. Even transforming was possible, it just hurt a lot (how the other kids could stand it, Naruto didn't know). Transforming had taken him forever to learn though, he had to read through so many scrolls, and it was so complicated! Why did they teach that at the beginning level anyway? Well if it was so easy for everybody else to learn then... maybe he would never be a ninja.

Unless... Mizuki had caught him in the hallway. He had said something about another secret test. If he could pass that test they would graduate him to genin no matter what. Even so, something that was "just up his alley," didn't sound very easy to Naruto. If he couldn't even perform a proper clone, why did the man think that he, Dead-Last, could learn any of those special techniques on that scroll. For that matter, why was something like a test for the Academy hidden deep within the Hokage's office? He had been in there lots of times, sure, but the old man had never let him go down there.

It was either that or spend the next seven years here or... The emotions and thoughts running through his head were looping over and over: failure, Hokage, special test, seven more years. Again and again that soon the thoughts had worn a groove in his mind. He was stuck in a rut that he couldn't get out of. "Do what you have to do, to become what you want to be." The words struck the blond shoving him out of the vicious cycle. Hon-san, the librarian who had saved him, who he looked up to everyday, who had suffered the same kind of setbacks that Naruto had, said those words to him. Hon didn't know what Naruto's answer was and the blond did not either. But... if his only options to be a ninja were seven years or the special test... Well, he had a feeling they would kick him out of school before he could graduate. So that only left one option.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was sitting at his desk planning out his attack. He would send his right wing out as a distraction drawing the opponent off to the side, weakening their forces. Then his left wing would flank them, turning the enemy to chaos. And while they were distracted he would make his move. A straight jab through the center, they wouldn't be able to catch him because they would have no idea which force was the true threat. This time it would work, this time he would escape this cursed paperwork, his secretaries would never catch him, not alive at least.

The "God" of Shinobi was just about to implement his awesome, perfect plan when the alarm went off. A horrible shrieking blaring siren screaming through the office. The man realized in a moment of insane clarity, the kind where he could see the mechanisms of daily life so clearly, the gears and wires of life so sharp against the stacks of paper on his desk, the choice before him. He could flee, there would never be another chance like this- a shadow clone or two and he could be living in a cabin far far away free from the burdens of paperwork forever, or he could walk down to the scroll chambers beneath the monument and discover what was going on. The old man, tired of a the excitement that had filled his life stood up and formed the simple hand seal.

One body flicker later he was standing deep in the catacombs below the mountain. He had come here many times before, so many times that the flicker took almost no effort. It was like walking a familiar path that his feet had trod long enough that the ruts in the dusty trail were the size of his shoes. Even if he were blind, senile, and left without a mind, when everything else faded away he would still be able to move himself from the office to these catacombs.

Because of his familiarity with the place Hiruzen could feel immediately that something was wrong, something wasn't where it was supposed to be. "Who's there?" The man called out into the darkness. The shelves of the room were arranged in such a way that even in pure darkness he could navigate the narrow gaps between the tomes. Others were not so lucky. The man heard from the far corner someone tripping and knocking out several of the priceless scrolls. "I know you are here. Show yourself!" The Hokage pushed a measure of his chakra through his hands into the air of the room. The energy caught in a series of seals and fire flickered to life the torches above.

"Gyaaaa! Light!" A loud obnoxious voice called out. Hiruzen walked around the shelves to the source of the outburst. Turning the last corner the man found Uzumaki Naruto on the floor rubbing what looked like ink out of his eyes. "Note to self: add disengaging structure to sensor loop. Light hurts."

"Naruto? What are you doing down here? and-" Hiruzen's eyes caught one the scroll in the blond's possession, "why do you have a scroll of forbidden techniques?"

The boy open his eyes and stared at the man. "Crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. Umm, Umm" The boy looked around wildly, reminding the Hokage of his grandson when he was found stealing cookies from the cabinet. Naruto's face scrunched together in concentrating, "Transformation technique!" Raising his eyebrow the Hokage was still confused about the whole situation as the thick oily smoke covered the boy. He thought for a long time, but to his memory (and it was still very good, thank you very much) transformation techniques weren't supposed to create such smoke.

"Kaa!" As the smoke cleared the old man was given a part of the answer. Sitting before him no long was the blond boy instead there was... wow. The man took a moment to take in who sat before him. He hadn't seen that much skin since... he honestly couldn't remember the last time he had seen that much skin. It would have had to have been at least twelve years ago, because Kami help him if it had been anyone else's skin but his wife's, there would have been hell to pay. Hopefully there weren't any consequences in the afterlife for this. Sitting before him was a blond bombshell, completely naked. If the man had had time to look at the girl's face he might have noticed the whiskers, but... Well, face it. To men what are eyes when there is a body like that in front of them? Hiruzen finally felt his age catching up with him. The shock of seeing his successor's legacy transform into a wet dream proved to be too much for the man's tenuous age.

Naruto watched as the color of the man's face changed from normal to an astounding shade of red, and fell over, unconscious. The naked girl picked up the scroll he/she had dropped. "Hmm, I have got to remember this!" Naruto ran back the way he came, hoping to get out before the transformation cut out and he had to deal with the sore feeling of skin and bones repositioning themselves back into his twelve year old boy form. He did not want to fail this exam because he was caught having a spasm somewhere. Annoying, hated, and epileptic, a happy Naruto did not make.

Mizuki had heard the warning. Part of him wanted to smile, part of him wanted to fall back on the floor laughing his butt off. The kid had actually gone for it! That demon brat had actually taken the bait and gone for it! It was just too good. Not only would that filthy demon get banished, maybe even killed, but Iruka would get taken off his high horse too! Oh it was just too good.

Shelving his internal monologue, the man jumped to attention. He just had to play his part long enough for him to slip away... and not die of laughter. But it was just. So. Hard!

"Mizuki? Are you ok? You seem kind of twitchy."

"Yeah." Mizuki squeaked, trying desperately to keep the maniacal laughter behind his lips.

"Okay." Iruka turned forward again, desperately worried about his student. That morning he had seen a side to the boy he had never seen before. Yes, the teacher had guessed it was there, there had been moments when the mask had slipped. But today was like watching the boy crumble. Nothing would have made him believe that the boy would have gone as far as to betray his village. He was constantly talking about becoming Hokage, the leader of the village. What would cause the boy to give all that up?

Iruka looked around at the rooftops flying past. Where was he? the teacher wondered. The boy's favorite haunts, the library, the park, the ramen stand had all been checked out already. A team was searching the practice fields to the east of town and another squadron of ANBU was searching the north. The boy had been caught in the catacombs inside the Hokage Monument... wait.

One of the boy's more famous stunts, one that had managed to tick off almost the whole village, had involved painting the faces upon the Hokage Monument. Iruka shot off toward the yet-to-be-searched mountain, "Come on, Mizuki. I think I have an idea."

"Ahh, sure."

Naruto sat staring at the scroll. The first technique was another clone technique. Unfortunately it was the easiest move in there to learn. There were things in there that he didn't think possible. Really, a technique that created living fire? Really! He was all for explosions, but a living explosion? That was just ridiculous, potentially game changing yes. But plausible? Well the fire clone was more likely, and that one looked uber hard. So the only option that probably wouldn't get him killed, or blown up, or both was the Shadow Clone. So Shadow Clone it was.

Standing Naruto prepared for his first trial run of the technique. As it turned out the "clone" technique wasn't actually a "clone technique" but really a low level genjutsu. That explained why everything he had read in the library about clone techniques was worthless. In concept clones were fairly simple. All he needed to do was split his chakra and throw it out of his body as an image of himself. The great thing about chakra was that in large amounts it tended to organize itself in the form of its creator, which was why clone techniques were supposed to be some of the easiest out there. The real trick was trying to keep the chakra from dissipating. Most clone techniques that Naruto had read about used some sort of medium to hold the chakra - usually water or dirt. The shadow clone was different however because it didn't use a specific medium but rather a unique compression style that seemed to make the chakra tangle itself up. As long as the internal state of the shadow clone wasn't disturbed they could live on. Naruto hadn't read everything in the paper, but he felt he had a pretty good handle on it. And if there was anything important, they would put it right in the first paragraph right? Really who puts potentially crucial information at the end. The only reason Naruto could see for this technique to be labeled "forbidden" was just the sheer amount of chakra it took to make even a single clone, and its potential for abuse. There was something in there about the creator running himself dry from over using the technique... Oh well, time to practice!

"Hmmm, let's see here. Yeah this should be enough." Naruto figured as he portioned off a section of the power in his belly. The boy formed the unique hand seal for the technique and forced the energy through it. "Shadow Clone Technique!" The boy was rewarded with one very sick looking copy of himself, that quickly burst into smoke, the excess chakra returning to the original. "Hmm let's try that again!"

The second try lasted long enough to double over dry heaving before it too went the way of the dodo. Naruto felt more confident about his third shadow clone. He was starting to get the hang of the technique he thought. Seriously, this was much easier than the techniques they taught at the academy, why didn't they teach this? There was definite progress as his third clone emerged from the smoke... and forth clone. Naruto paused at that. He hadn't intended to make a second clone, but they both seemed pretty stable. Stable enough to stand... and do nothing. Waving his hand Naruto tried to get some reaction from the supposedly autonomous clones. Naruto shrugged and called back the hunks of chakra that were his shadow clone.

"Here we go! Number four!" Confidence burning Naruto got a bit wild. If the technique was supposed to create more than one clone, why not aim for making more? So far his adventures had been met with remarkable success. A supposedly Jonin level technique and he had progressed so rapidly. Let it never be said that success ever went to the head of Uzumaki Naruto ... he just got carried away, sometimes wildly. Three he decided, three would be enough to test himself. Three wasn't too many and if he could at least get them to do something other than stand like boards, then all the better. Focusing briefly Naruto shoved a slightly larger amount of power into the technique. More clones would mean more chakra, right? The energy whistling through the technique's compression-entanglement seemed to be more direct, more confident than before. This time for sure he would have it. Naruto was sure. He was going to pass! He was going to p-

Brain-pretzel!

Naruto gasped in pain as his cerebral cortex contorted itself into the most excruciating configuration possible. The boy's muscles locked up, unable to handle the messages his brain was sending them as his mind was literally being twisted around itself. Through the convoluted neural pathways Naruto heard clapping above him.

"Nice job."

"That's kind of funny actually."

"What did you do, you moron?"

"Hgrraderg." The originally Naruto gurgled. What he had meant to say was, "Shut up you stupid clones." but like every other part of his body, his tongue was not cooperating.

"No, but seriously. What did you do?"

Naruto tried to answer but was again thwarted by his minds contorted position. The three living, viable, autonomous clones looked down on their original. On one hand it was kind of funny to see him twitching like that, on the other hand it was embarrassing to see themselves spaz out on the cold hard ground. It was obvious after several seconds of mangled gurgles and half formed words that their original was not going to be able to answer them. "So," the middle clone looked up from his creator, "while twitchy works out his issues, you want to figure out what he did?" His fellow clones shrugged and nodded vigorously. The scroll of forbidden techniques lay open several feet from where Naruto had been practicing. The boy's clones sat down around it and commenced reading (attempting to find a remedy) for whatever had happened during their creation.

"Hey, did you even read this?" One of the clones called out to the twitching boy. Naruto managed to gurgle out the reply 'skimmed it' through his seizure. "And you didn't get to the part that said that improper implementation of the technique could result in BRAIN DAMAGE, did you?"

"Where did it say that?" The first clone turned to his companion and pointed to the scroll. "About three quarters of the way through."

"Oh. You know you'd think they'd put that somewhere important. Like in big red characters somewhere on the second line."

"No. They expect if you're learning techniques from the FORBIDDEN SCROLL that you're intelligent enough to actually read through everything before you try it out."

"Yeah, but really who puts important stuff after the explanation of the technique. It should come before it, you know that way you can read it before you know how to do it."

"True, but we'd just skim over that too. I mean come on look, there are the words giant fluffy cow in the third paragraph. I think if we had read it thoroughly the first time, we would have remembered that."

"Yeah... oh well." The clone shrugged just before the three of them disappeared in a puff of smoke.

As his mental faculties returned Naruto shivered. "I hope I never have to go through that again."

Mizuki grinned. He had finally given Iruka the slip. It had not been as easy as he had thought. When he had begun working at the academy with his childhood friend he had not expected to be surgically connected to him. He was running far behind schedule. Yes, his group had been maneuvered away from the training grounds where he and the demon brat were supposed to meet, but by now somebody else could have easily found the boy. It was risky, going to the point now, but he had to try. If by some stroke of luck the boy had managed to escape notice, he could still walk off with a kill underneath his belt.

The area seemed empty when the man dropped down from the trees. "Na- Naruto?" Mizuki cursed himself for letting his apprehension seep into his voice. He had to be the confident instructor proctoring the exam, not the criminal plotting murder. If the boy got any hint of his true intentions... well the ANBU had a hard enough time catching him, so Mizuki doubted he could either. As things stood he had maybe a fifty-fifty chance at pulling this off.

"Here I am sensei!" The blond boy strolled casually out of a bush, "See! See! I learned one!" The boy pointed hysterically to a clone that followed him into the clearing. Mizuki, however, didn't notice the corporeal clone. His mind was too busy marveling at his luck. Nothing had gone right today, and yet after it all here, right in front of him, the moron had left himself totally exposed. How easy could this get? Kill the bastard or not, jack the scroll in his hand and get the hell out of the village. The choices, the options, the chances! One Kunai!

Wait. Mizuki felt something cold hit his stomach. Why were their two orange clad idiots in front of him? "Do I pass, sensei? Do I? Do I? Do I?"

"Wha- but how. Whe-" Mizuki swallowed his surprise. "Con-congratulations, Naruto." Mizuki was scrambling. He had not actually expected dead last to learn a jonin level technique. This was outrageous, he couldn't even perform a clone! Once again things had become complicated. He had to think of something and fast... "Okay, in order to complete this special secret graduation exam, you must hand over the scroll to me." The man realized just how unconvincing he sounded after the words slipped out of his lips. There was no way the boy was going to buy that. While he reached out with one hand, the traitor slipped his other hand into his pack and grabbed two kunai. He couldn't tell which one of the blondes was real, so he would just have to hit them both, when it came to that.

"Sure! Here you go!" The idiot with the scroll walked over and handed Mizuki the scroll. "Do I pass, now?"

"Yeah, sure." Mizuki tried to blink away his confusion, unsuccessfully. How did this kid even manage to get through the security to get to the forbidden scroll? Was it really that easy? Come to think of it, he didn't really know what kind of security measures were around the forbidden scroll. For all he knew it had a giant sign over it that said "Forbidden Scroll Here" (Footnote 1) Mizuki was just about finally get his hands on one of the most guarded secrets of this sappy village when his highly tuned senses alerted him to danger. Ducking out of the way Mizuki barely managed to avoid the volley of kunai that almost lacerated him.

"Mizuki what are you doing?"

"Damn." The traitor swore as Iruka emerged from the forest. The only thing that could make this day any worse would be having the Hokage looking over his shoulder.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei! I can graduate right! I got the scroll and learned shadow clone, see." The demon boy pointed back to his clone who waved in recognition. Iruka frowned, "Naruto, what are you talking about?"

"The secret graduation exam... don't you know about it?"

"Naruto who told you that?" The kind teacher growled dangerously, his eyes flicking over to his partner in cri- teaching. The man realized he had been caught red handed. His muscles were tense. He was a rat backed into a corner, prone to attack. It was just a twitch of his arm, but Iruka hadn't been selected for chonin for nothing. "Naruto, move!"

The knife came out with blinding speed, aimed for the boys throat. Surging fear fueled chakra through his body and Iruka pushed himself to move faster than he had ever moved before. Just before leaping forward, Iruka saw the look on the boy's face as he registered what was going on. For the next fraction of a second, Iruka couldn't see anything, he was moving too fast. When he could see again Iruka saw the orange jumpsuit flying backward, unharmed. The next thing the teacher comprehended was pain. A deep gash cut through his vest and into his chest. He had managed to get Naruto out of the way of the traitor's attack, but he hadn't managed to avoid it himself.

"Iruka-sensei!" The clone of Naruto cried witnessing his teacher jump faster than the eye could see into an attack to save his original. To Naruto, everything moved too fast for him to comprehend. Crimson-black droplets hung in the air. He could hear his clone shouting, he could feel himself flying through the air. But none of it made sense. His brain couldn't fit together the pieces into an order that he could understand. Black knives cut above his head and embedded themselves into the forest. The ground came up and slapped against his back, hit his head. He bounced away. The base of his skull ached from the impact but he could hear metal clashing against metal. He pushed himself off the ground to see what was going on. Iruka. Mizuki. A scroll. Weapons. Fighting. His head couldn't handle all the information that was coming. This was supposed to be a test, right? Why were his teachers fighting? What was going on?

Mizuki kicked Iruka away and swung around to face Naruto. Reaching back, the man grabbed the giant shuriken attached to his back. Naruto tried to move, but something froze him. The face of his teacher, usually smiling, or indifferent, or worried, was plastered with hate. Hate, hate, burning hate. It was like all the burning eyes of the village were melted and poured into the man's skull. They blazed with anger hate, like little suns. Naruto drew back in fear, his legs unable to move, melted by the fire in the man's eyes. "Die you little demon brat!"

"Wh- why?" Naruto whispered, trying to understand the emotion burning in the man's eyes.

"Because that THING inside you ruined my life!"

"What? I didn't do anything!"

"No, you didn't." The man smiled cruelly, enjoying this far too much to be sane, "But the thing inside you did. Have you ever wondered why everyone hates you? You're a demon. The Kyuubi, the monster that destroyed our village and killed the Fourth, is sealed within you. But. don't worry! It won't be for much longer. Rejoice! For I shall cut it out of you!" The man, insane Naruto was sure, pulled his arm back, ready to swing the deadly weapon at the boy. Suddenly the man twitched, his eyes grew wide in pain, and rolled back into his skull - the hate in them extinguished.

Mizuki fell to the ground.

"Naruto. Are- are you okay?" Iruka panted. The man looked like hell, breathing heavy and the front of his vest was stained a dark color from the liquid seeping out of the long gash.

Naruto swallowed, trying to find his voice again, "Y- Yeah." He whispered hoarsely. Somewhere in everything that had happened his clone had disappeared. He had never seen someone die before. It- it was terrifying, he decided. Even seeing it happen to something that was about to kill him... it was awful. Confused, hot, and shameful tears began to well up in the boys eyes. "I- I don't understand."

"It's okay, Naruto. You are safe."

"But, what- he said that..." Naruto pushed his hand against his stomach. He couldn't imagine that a beast like the nine-tailed fox was sealed in there, in him. It didn't seem real. It couldn't be. But as the hot tears began to slide down his cheeks memories came piling on top of him. _"You killed the fourth." "You're a monster." "You ruined our lives."_ The anger, the pain, the hate, the hurt in all those eyes. The eyes that would sting him when he walked down the street. The fists that hit him and the feet that kicked him. The insults and meanness when he would walk through the Kyuubi Festival. The hate, above all the hate. _"You monster." "You demon." "Get away." "Die."_ It couldn't be true. He had never done anything! He had never done anything like that! It couldn't be true.

"Naruto," The boy opened his eyes when he felt his teachers hands on his shoulder, "it is true."

"No, no, I didn't do it! I didn't-"

"Naruto," The man's quite, raspy voice cut the boy off, "You are not the Kyuubi." Strength was leaving the man as blood dribbled out of the gruesome gash. "You are not a monster."

Tears were blurring his vision, but Naruto could still see the smile creep across the teachers face, "A monster wouldn't paint the monument, a monster wouldn't laughed, a monster wouldn't try so hard, a monster wouldn't do all the things you do. Yes, the Kyuubi is sealed inside of you, but" blood spattered out as the man coughed "you're no monster." Finally the man's legs gave out and he dropped to his knees, holding tightly to Naruto to keep from falling. "The K- It killed my family. It made me an orphan... just like you.

"I don't hate you." His voice was fading, but he needed to finish. "Others do, but you will show them: you are not the monster. You proved that to me. I. don't... hate you, Naruto. I... L..." Shadows finally claimed the man's eyes. And, like the puppet whose strings were cut, he collapsed.

During the fight with his partner, the band holding his forehead protector had been cut. Now the last few threads holding it, snapped. When Ebisu, an elite jonin of the village, discovered the clearing. He found Naruto, holding his sensei tightly. The forehead protector was held in between them. He had been drawn there by the sound of a child's cries.

Footnote 1

In actuality the only security measures placed around the Scroll of Forbidden Jutsu was an ingenious trick of deception. It's actually sitting right out in the open in the hidden library underneath the Hokage monument, erroneously sorted alongside a long list of techniques so antiquated, useless, and complex that no one ever looked over those shelves. One could only find it if they knew where to look, or how to manipulate the card catalog, a skill only taught to librarians anymore. This brilliant disguise was actually devised by Hon during his tenure as curator of the Hidden Library.

Onyx: Wow, that was kind of a downer ending... Oh well.

Clone 1: Oh well! You just going to leave it like that?

Onyx: Yes. And you shouldn't be talking yet!

Clone 1: What?

Onyx: SHHH! Welcome to THE END OF THE CHAPTER SHORT! Today's guests are: Naruto's clones!

*Applause*

Onyx: Okay, now you can talk.

Clone 1: What? Who was even clapping. You have no idea if people are even going to read this.

Clone 2: So? I like applause, so it origin does not matter.

Onyx: Exactly, I agree with numba 2. Now ON TO QUESTIONS

Clone 3: Are you always like this?

Onyx: Yes, I mean no! I mean I'm the one asking the questions here!

Clone 3: Whhaatever

Onyx: Okay first question: why DID Naruto suffer from his brain-pretzel attack?

Clone 1: Well part of the shadow clone technique is splitting your chakra in to relatively even pieces. Naruto wasn't careful enough and ended splitting his mind too. So basically he just ripped his brain into about three pieces and forgot to leave one for himself.

Clone 3: It was actually kind of funny to watch him spaz out like that.

Clone 2: Yeah, he kind of looked like a squire. The exploding kind.

…

Onyx: And on that note we have to wrap everything up. That's all the time we have for today on END OF CHAPTER SHORTS. Review, tell your friends, get in touch with you inner psycho and review again!

See you next time!


	2. Chapter 2

_The Academy is closed today _

_Team rosters are under deliberation_

_Enjoy your day off!_

_ -Sincerely the Academy Instructors_

Sarutobi Hiruzen stepped into the hospital room and looked around. Peacetime had limited his time in this place, but the smell of disinfectant, disease, and the lingering filmy odor of lives passed on was unmistakable. Thankfully, today the reason for his visit to this temple of lives saved and lost was not for reasons morbid. In fact, he felt quite happy about how the previous day's events had turned out. Iruka-sensei was easily patched up by the medic-nin, a previously unknown traitor was discovered and dealt with, a scroll of forbidden jutsu was not lost, and as for a certain blond...

The Hokage had watched the events from the vantage of his crystal ball. Honestly he had been surprised the boy had learned the shadow clone technique so quickly. But, in some ways, he wasn't. The boy, despite his loud nature, had, on occasion, shown greater potential then he let on publicly. Hon, one of the few people (alongside the family of a small ramen shop and a small group of nature shops) to show the boy much kindness, had expressed a similar sentiment when they had spoken. Hiruzen wondered why the boy had so much trouble with the much simpler clone technique.

"Good morning, Iruka-kun. How are you feeling?" The man resting in the bed, bandages wrapped around his chest, jumped at the greeting.

Snapping his attention away from the window, the man stumbled over his words, "Hokage-sa-sama. Wha- why- um, good morning."

"Iruka-kun, you needn't be so stiff. I am far too old and tired to deal with such formalities. Right now, I'm just a man coming to see his friend in the hospital, and maybe to discuss a certain student."

Iruka nodded slowly, then jolted as the last bit of the Hokage's speech hit him. "Oh! Naruto! You can't punish him, it wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to do it. Mizuki tricked him into taking the scroll, he said Naruto could graduate if he stole it. Please, he just wanted to-"

The old man cut him off with a raised hand. Internally, he marveled at just how easy it had become to silence people in his old age. When he had been younger he had often had to resort to yelling, or blunt instruments (depending on his mood at the time). Now he could command the noise in a room to stop with a simple gesture. "I am mostly aware of the situation, though you have just enlightened me on the matter of how the traitor convinced Naruto to steal the scroll. I personally have no intention of exacting punishment upon the boy. Actually, what I came to talk to you about was what your opinion would be about a recommendation for special graduation."

"Wha-?" Iruka paused, slack jawed. "Run that past me again."

"I was wondering if you would like to recommend Naruto Uzumaki for a special graduation. As I see it, last night Naruto demonstrated mastery over almost all of the graduation requirements. Whether by luck or skill, he found and extracted a highly guarded scroll and avoided detection until reaching a predetermined location. He mastered a high-level jutsu several times more complicated than what is expected out of genin, and demonstrated... creative thinking... when he was discovered, effectively allowing him to escape. From my perspective we have witnessed a far better indicator of the boy, as a ninja, than the normal test."

"Yeah," the Hokage couldn't help but smile at the shocked face of the teacher.

"However, in order to do this, I would need your signature on the form." Hiruzen removed a small, slightly crumpled piece of paper from his coat. (Footnote 1). Extending the paper, Hiruzen indicated an open line for "teacher recommendation."

"Basically," The Hokage felt himself slipping into his old teacher skin- it felt kind of scratchy- "you just need to indicate that you feel that Naruto: will not be adversely mentally, physically, or mortally affected or endangered by the early graduation from the Ninja School of Konoha; has demonstrated sufficient skill to warrant early graduation; and is sane enough not to pose a future risk to the village."

"I don't understand, Naruto isn't graduating early," Iruka said as he took the paper and examined it.

"Well he is, if you consider that under normal circumstances he would have to wait another year. Iruka, it's just a clerical piece of magic, a paperwork sleight of hand. No one, other than people writing history books, will ever know that the boy is in the 'ninja-graduating-early' file," The Hokage briefly remembered the last boy he had filled out this particular form for. He wondered what had become of Itachi Uchiha. "All most people will know is that the boy was given a probationary slot on a team."

Iruka winced at the lingering pain of the gash as he reached for the pen the Hokage held out to him.

"Na- Naruto?"

Hinata Hyuuga had started this day like any other. Despite all that would be changing after today, she had done everything according to her ritual. She had considered that, yes, today was her last day at the Academy; she was being assigned to a team today, but mostly she had been wondering if Naruto would show up for class. She hadn't seen him after the exam day. When he left that day he looked so sad. The smile that she loved had disappeared from his face and he looked broken. It must hurt, she figured, being the only kid in the class not to graduate. Even though he tried so hard, no one could blame him if he didn't come to class. Hinata couldn't imagine how hurt the boy would look if he was there and everybody but him was assigned a team. He had always brushed off failure like it was nothing. He was always trying so hard. She admired the boy for it. She almost lo- lo- l... She couldn't even think that word, but it was probably true.

Normally she tried to get to class early, that way she could be there when Naruto walked in. Most days he had something funny to say or pulled some kind of prank. He never noticed her sitting up in the back of the classroom, but that was okay. His seat was normally down in front, very far away from her. Except two days ago, when he had sat next to her. She had been so distracted by his presence, she couldn't have done very well on the test. And when she saw that Naruto had finished before her, with long passages for the short answer questions she... felt ashamed. Naruto tried so hard, but she had not expected him to be so good. It was cruel of Mizuki-sensei to claim that Naruto had cheated on the test! She had watched him the whole time and he had never looked away from his paper! Plus he finished before anyone else! Mizuki-sensei was just mean saying Naruto hadn't done that work.

Still, she was afraid that Naruto wouldn't be there. No one expected him to pass. Even she admitted that it would take a miracle for him to graduate. But he was Naruto Uzumaki, he could pull off a miracle, right? Right?

Hinata wasn't sure.

She had been surprised, then, when she was greeted loudly by one hyperactive blond sitting in the front of the room. Thus leading her back to the situation she was in now: frozen stiff, facing Naruto who, not only seemed back to his exuberant self, but was actually early for a change. "G- good morning, U-Uzumaki-san." Hinata managed to squeak. Her mind was running out of control and she could feel a blush beginning to creep into her cheeks.

Think of something to say, she screamed to herself. This could be the last time you actually get to talk to him! Even if he does graduate, he might not even be assigned your team. Last chance, say something! Anything! But her lips couldn't do it. She could think of hundreds of things to say: that she admired him, that she thought that he should graduate no matter how bad his test went, that he was the most amazing person she had ever met... But somewhere between her brain and her tongue a little devil reached out and snatched away Hinata's words. Embarrassed, Hinata mumbled something even she didn't understand and turned to go to her seat.

She couldn't look back. Naruto was probably staring at her, thinking she was weird. Or worse, he might have thought that she insulted him! He could be glaring at her right now, angry. Oh, he probably was. He was mad that she couldn't say anything, that she hadn't done it right. Naruto wouldn't do that, or would he? She had seen a look on his face two days ago that didn't seem to fit, what if he had another one like that now. Maybe he was disappointed with her. Maybe he was looking at her with those cold eyes like father made. Or what if he was ignoring her like the other Hyuuga clan members? Hinata couldn't stand not knowing, but she didn't want to look back in case her worst fears were true.

She glanced back- just for a second- just to make sure he wasn't angry. The boy's brows were knit together, but he didn't look angry. He seemed confused.

By the time Hinata had taken her seat - now she was forced to look forward, in the direction Naruto was sitting - Naruto had turned around and was looking at the blackboard again.

The room slowly began to fill with people. Classmates that soon might become teammates; friends that would soon become comrades; people who would die - some before her, some after her. But all the Hyuuga could think about was a fact that she had thought about when she had been struggling to find something to say to her crush: this could be the last time she ever saw Naruto.

The thought was frightening, she knew it shouldn't be, but it was. Really, she had never actually talked to the boy, but there was something about his presence... He always seemed so energetic. He was always trying hard, even when people tried to hurt him. She could see the way the people on the streets looked at Naruto, it was even worse than how the elders glared at her. She didn't understand them. What had Naruto done to them to make them hate him. The elders shot her those looks when she failed, because she was weak. Naruto wasn't weak, he was strong! He had to be strong to face down all those hateful faces and smile. He had to be strong to try so hard when people did mean things. She had seen how people treated Naruto. Stores used to raise the prices of things for Naruto, or just throw him out. They stopped doing that because Naruto stopped going to stores, but still. And whenever Naruto did something right people still hated him. At least the Hyuuga elders would stop looking at her with hate for a little while.

Hinata admired Naruto, the way he could stand up to people, the way he would never give up. He didn't show it in school but he studied a lot. The old man in the Library had promised not to tell Naruto, but she watched him read and write from behind one of the shelves. Whatever he was doing was very hard. Sometimes she would sneak a quick peek at the scrolls when he went to the bathroom. There were all sorts of seals and books about history, and chakra, and poisons, and bodies, and lots of numbers and lists and directions. There were lots of things they taught in the academy, but there were lots of things that weren't. Hinata had wondered for a long time why Naruto never did well at school.

Hon-san, the librarian, had explained it to her - when she had finally gotten the courage to ask him. The man's answer made sense: he said that Naruto didn't like working at the school because regardless of what he did, the teachers judged him unfairly. Hon said Naruto liked scrolls and books better because they weren't mean to him. Hinata could understand. She liked school a lot better than working at home. At home there were all sorts of people watching her - even one's she couldn't see - and they never seemed happy. They were always angry, or disappointed, or indifferent. It must be like that for Naruto, too. Books couldn't tell him he was fated to be weak, or a disappointment, or... other mean things.

Naruto must feel like her, when the elders force her to spar against Hanabi. They don't expect her to win. The way they look at her, Hinata could tell they didn't even want her to win. They were using her to hurt Father. If they didn't want her to win, why even try to win? She would often ask herself. Naruto must have felt the same way when the teachers pointed out everything he did wrong. When all the other kids spared, the instructors would say good things and bad things, but when Naruto fought, even if he won, everything he did was wrong.

Yet, despite all that, he still tried hard. When he wasn't at the library, or pulling jokes around the village, Hinata would often find him practicing hard at the training fields. But he didn't have anyone to teach him, not even someone to spar with. So he didn't get anywhere very fast. But there were lots of broken logs around his hiding spots.

She wished she could be like that. Hinata wanted to be able to try harder, to be louder. How many times she had dreamed of telling the Elders, or Neji, or even Father to leave her alone? But she couldn't do it. Whatever gave Naruto the strength to do what he did, she didn't have. So all she could do was admire Naruto for it. He was a ray of sunshine that would brighten even her darkest days, and inspire her to try harder. If she couldn't see him again...

The door slammed, knocking Hinata from her thoughts. Iruka-sensei had just walked into the room. He was moving stiffly and looked very, very tired. Everyone was watching him closely as he walked over to the chalkboard and looked out at them.

Hinata was so nervous she couldn't listen to Iruka-sensei's speech. It was probably something about how proud he was of them, and how they would be situated into teams, and how he knew they would do well. She caught something about danger, but the words wouldn't sink in fully. Iruka finished his speech, and there was a moment of tense silence as he retrieved a small scroll from his vest pocket. Breaking the seal Iruka opened the scroll and the knot that had been growing in Hinata's stomach clenched tight.

"The teams will be divided up this way, when I call your name please come forward, take your forehead protectors and stand next to your new teammates." This was it, the graduation list. "Team Seven will be comprised of Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura."

The genius of the class and the pink haired girl stood and retrieved their metal bands. "Team Eight will be Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inuzuka Kiba." Hinata felt her legs move, they took her down to the table. Her arm reached out for the accessory that would mark her for the rest of her life as a shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She walked and joined her teammates. When she turned to look out back at the class, the four that remained, she felt their eyes. Did Naruto feel hers?

"Team Nine is still active from last years, so Team Ten is Akimichi Chouji, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino."

Iruka turned to face the kids that were standing, "Congratulations to you all..." He might have said more things, he might have... Hinata didn't hear them. She saw the top of a blond head. Arms covered his face. Naruto was still, Hinata couldn't tell if he was laughing, crying, or asleep. She was standing next to the stunted Team Seven, so she could hear when Sakura leaned over and whispered to the class crush. "I knew he wouldn't graduate. He's just so annoying."

Hinata saw red. Then she yelped and jumped backwards. She had never felt like that! Without realizing it, Hinata's rage - desire to kill the pink haired girl- had actually pushed chakra from her fingers like a junkin strike. As the surprise and anger faded away she realized the rest of the class was staring at her.

"Ahhh! Sorry!" Hinata bowed deeply, trying to keep her eyes down so she didn't have to look at the others. Why had she done that? She never could manage a strike like that in practice... She had just been so mad - still was really - at Sakura. Naruto tried so hard, he neither deserved this kind of singling out, nor her spiteful comments. There was absolutely no reason for her to say that! No reason! As her anger built up again Hinata could feel the energy inside her moving faster. As a Hyuuga, she was supposed to be carefully in tune with the internal state of her chakra and she could tell that, right now, she was way out of balance. Her forms would probably be sloppy right now, but her chakra felt angry, hot - her strikes would probably be deadly.

"Iruka-sensei!" Hinata's hand went up. She couldn't control herself. It was the burning energy inside of her that was doing it. It was taking her deep conviction that Naruto couldn't fail and running with it. Running faster than she could go. The shy part of Hinata was screaming for it to come back. "Why didn't you call Naruto's name? There is one more forehead protector." Now the class was staring at her again, but the energy wouldn't let her back away. Finally the shy part of her fell away. A whole morning of worrying and waiting had weakened her too much. She had let all the nervousness slip away and was staring at Iruka like her father would stare at her when he asked if she followed Naruto. She knew the answer, but she was confronting the teacher.

"I was going to get to that, Hinata. Uzumaki Naruto please stand!" Naruto stood up, Hinata could see the puffy red ruminants of tears. The brilliant light of Naruto sniffed and wiped away the last glistening tear. He puffed out his chest, seeming to pull out courage from nowhere. He looked like the man that Father had killed as punishment for betraying the clan. Pride, shame, regret, the boy was resigned to his fate.

"Naruto, because of recent events, you have been chosen for a special graduation." Nothing, Iruka's words didn't seem to have a place in the mind of his students. There was no reaction to his words. "You'll be given a probationary position on Team Seven, but you will be spending time training with several special instructors, please take your forehead protector and report with Team Seven tomorrow to meet your special instructor. For now, please stand with Team Seven to meet your team leader."

It was like watching a mountain through the ages wearing down from the sharp rocky monolith to a smooth hill of rubble, Naruto's face made slow transitions from ridged depressed indifference to awestruck astonishment to terrifying triumph. Leaping to the table, the special graduate jabbed his finger to the sky and brought it down like the god of judgment, "HA! Take that Uchiha! Who's not graduating? Huh? Huh? YES!"

Hinata grinned in a most not-Hinata way.

"Hatake? …Hatake? …Hatake!" Hiruzen Sarutobi snapped his fingers in front of the jonin's face. "Focus here."

"I-it's cleaner than I imagined it," Hatake Kakashi marveled at the small apartment. Normally he prided himself on his ability to make accurate assumptions given enough intel, but he had assumed that Naruto Uzumaki's house should have been a pigsty. If anything, it hardly seemed used.

"The boy hardly spends any time here, from what the ANBU report. Most of his time is spent in a library across town," The Hokage shut the door and quietly locked it again. Kakashi walked into the one room apartment and examined it further. There was a small kitchen in one corner, barley used. And a bed in another that, it appeared, got far more use than the kitchen. A skinny door was set in one wall, Kakashi had first thought it to be a closet, but now guessed it led to a bathroom. In the third corner of the room was a pile of orange cloths - the blonds signature outfit.

"Not that I would blame him really," The Hokage picked up a cup-ramen container and dropped it into the trash, "what few neighbors he has are rather unpleasant."

Finishing his scan around the room, Kakashi turned to the Hokage and spoke: "What was it you wanted to talk about, Hokage-sama?"

"Baa! Hatake, you don't need to talk to me like that here," The copy-ninja nodded, but said nothing. The wrinkles on the old man's face deepened, 'Minato' he thought, 'what would you think if you knew what your son had done already?'

"Hatake, I want you to be Naruto's case manager - as the case may be."

"Oh?"

"I thought it might be helpful to get a look at how the boy lives," The man trailed off looking around the room, "or doesn't live..."

"I would have expected him to leave more of an impression on his home, yes. But what of it?"

"You wouldn't think he lived here at all - if it weren't for the orange. But yes, if you had just met the boy, you would think such thoughts."

"Would I be wrong?"

Hiruzen tried to smile, but his lips fell to a grimace, "In, at least, the art of deception, the boy excels far beyond his peers."

"I would have thought escape would have been his specialty, he certainly gives the ANBU a hard enough time."

"And who would be telling you that information, Kakashi?"

Holding up his hands in defense, Kakashi tried to brush off the old man's harsh comment. "A few friends?" The God of Shinobi growled but said nothing more on the subject. Instead, he handed Kakashi a thin packet. The old man looked expectant as Kakashi opened the packet and began to read over the information. It was a psych report done by none other than Ibiki of Interrogation and Torture. Odd as it was for the sadist to do a report on a child - that could be explained as the boy was the container for the Demon Fox. He scanned over the first couple lines without much sinking in. However, like some dark novel Ibiki's diagnosis of the boy pulled in Kakashi. After reading, then re-reading, and then reading again the fairly short (the boy hadn't lived long enough to get a very big record) report, Kakashi set it down on the bed.

"Well, I wouldn't have guessed it. But I can see it now."

"Yes," the man nodded, "The boy is very good at hiding it. But on occasion the mask slips. In those profound moments when it does... we see the side of him that he tries so hard to hide. We all harbor different sides, we shinobi more than most. Naruto however... that other side is dangerous, to him, to us, possibly to this world. It must be dealt with, quickly."

Kakashi sat down on the bed. Without thinking about it, his hand rested on top of the papers detailing a boy whose exterior had been crafted to fool the outside world. "How do you know?"

"It is my job," The old man paused to look out the window, "I suppose I'm glad that the events of the other night occurred, for it gave us an excuse to go through with this probationary program. I agree with Ibiki, the boy would not have handled a direct transition into such a hostile environment. Even if we had the luxury of designing a team to ease him into society again, I still wonder if this course wouldn't be better. Again I find myself bound by politics, unable to do what the boy truly needs. Neither the Hyuuga clan, nor the Nara, nor the Akimichi, nor the Aburame, nor any clan was willing to let their children be part of a team with the boy. As he is."

"Minato, this pitiful village you died to save has turned its back on you," The Hokage whispered, to no one but himself.

For a while the room sat in silence. Kakashi picked up the papers and looked at them without reading, "Who is this Senju Hon that Naruto spends so much time with."

"An old, retired seal master from my era." The Hokage sighed, "He was famous for his battle seals, but now he is the curator for a small, rarely used, ninja library on the far side of town. One of the boy's few confidants. It seems he saved the boy from a mob several years ago. Naruto took a liking to the man after that."

"He's learning battle seals?" Naruto Uzumaki was renown in the village for his pranks, and Kakashi figured out that this particular library must have supplied at least some of the recipes for the boy's "special concoctions." Instinctively Hatake scratched at his mask, fighting to keep the memory of his experience with one of the boys chemical cocktails from surfacing. A aptitude for dangerously annoying chemicals, honed escape skills, and a nearly unlimited access battle seals, i.e. any technique possible... a shudder worthy concept if there ever was one.

"Mn, just the basics of Fuuinjutsu as I understand. Though, Hon has mentioned an apprenticeship in the future."

The pair lapsed into silence, caught up in their own thoughts. Hiruzen ran over the plan for one last time in his head. If necessary, there were still a few seconds to he could back out. The fact was Naruto needed a teacher. The boy would become a ninja, that could not be avoided - partly for his parentage, partly for the creature sealed inside of him. But the boy could never become a good weapon as he was now. He certainly had the raw materials for becoming a powerful blade, but the boy's emotions tainted him. So much confusion and depression was bottled up behind the boisterous mask he put on. Emotions liable to ferment into anger, and if left unchecked: hatred. Suffering would be the only result if they tried to forage the boy now. Turning him into a weapon now would be like trying to wield a sword with neither hilt nor guard - sooner to cut the wielder then the enemy. The boy needed to be tempered, trained, and reintroduced to society. He needed bonds to tie him to Konoha. Friends, loved ones, comrades that could cement his loyalty. And no matter how it was gone about, it was a tricky business.

The second part of the plan was just as important. While Naruto was an unfinished weapon, there was no plan to use him for a while. The man who sat before him was a weapon that was once sharp, but had rusted. Kakashi was an excellent ninja, of that there was no doubt. But peace had made the man lazy, and even worse given him time to brood. The Hokage had gotten just as many reports on Kakashi as he had on the hyperactive blond. Sullen, anti-social, lazy, reclusive, and addicted to poorly written adult fiction - Kakashi was a blade ready to break.

To use a breaking blade to perfect an unfinished weapon... was it really safe?

"That's interesting, I suppose," Kakashi's eye closed, dismissing the whole affair, "But I'm not going to see him but once or twice a week. So what can I do?" He stood up to leave. The papers still lay on the bed.

"Not so fast Hatake." Hiruzen stopped Kakashi as he reached for the door, "I want you to be the boy's personal manager."

"No thank you." The Hokage couldn't see through the face mask, but he would have bet that the man was smiling.

"Kakashi, that wasn't a request." Something in the back of Hiruzen's mind reminded him: there was no turning back now.

"Where is he!" Haruno Sakura kicked the wall. It responded with dull thud, she wished it would have been louder. The other teams had left hours ago! Why was she the one stuck here waiting? Yes she was waiting with Sasuke, but he wasn't in a talkative mood right now. And to make matters worse she had to wait with Uzumaki! In the same room! For hours! Surely there was some law against this kind of torture, there had to be right! The aforementioned brat was doing... something with a scroll and some ink. He had started, what? an hour ago! And he mumbled!

"For the last time, I don't know."

"Quiet, you!" Sakura barked at Naruto. She had brought a full pouch of kunai, just to show off to her new sensei, show that she was always prepared, but maybe she could use Naruto as target practice. He could dodge- most of them... The point was she was bored and agitated and annoyed, and he could actually be useful for once and entertain her.

"Hmmm, I think that should do it." The blond nibbled the tip of his brush for a couple seconds before setting it down. Sakura wondered what it was that he was 'done' with. She remembered he was working on seal... or something. Not that she couldn't learn seals if she wanted to! But that was for chunin, so she didn't need it right now. And really, it was Naruto! By the time she was a chunin she would probably know more about seals than him, even if he had a head start. The boy was just that dumb.

"Hey, ah, Sakura-chan! Do you have a few kunai I could borrow?" Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly as he asked the question.

"Why?" Sakura stamped over to Naruto, her curiosity had nothing to do with it. "Can't you use your own?"

Nervously Naruto looked around, the brat wouldn't even look her in the eye as he asked to borrow some of her equipment! "Well...uh... I-uh-I don't have any with me, right now?" He flinched back when Sakura shot him a death glare.

"Are you going to ask me for kunai when where on a mission too? Naruto we're ninja! We have to be prepared to defend ourselves at all times. Don't you remember that? What if this were a mission! We might all be dead right now because you couldn't think to pack standard ninja equipment. Who do you think I am, your mother?"

Naruto looked hurt, and Sakura supposed she had gotten her point across. Digging into her weapons pouch (Footnote 2) and tossed a few kunai at the boy. "Here, but I'm not giving you anymore." Maybe, Sakura figured, she could score some extra teamwork points with her new teacher if she mentioned that she had shared her supplies with Naruto.

"Thanks, Sakura-chan."

"And stop calling me that!" Sakura stomped back over to her chair, the one next to Sasuke. However, out of the corner of her eye she watched Naruto. He happened to be the only interesting thing in the room, and she needed something to pass the time - Sasuke was tired of talking he had told her. The boy picked up the five kunai she had loaned him and placed them to the side of the scroll. Taking the first he placed it on top of the paper. Pushing the flat of the blade with his palm a puff of smoke rose up from the parchment and obscured hand and weapon for a second. When the white smoke screen dissipated the iron instrument had disappeared.

What! There was no why Naruto could have actually made a working storage seal! He was too dumb. Okay, okay, no problem - Sakura tried to console her wounded ego - it still might not work and plus it's only one kunai. Naruto nodded and picked up a second kunai. Just like the first it disappeared into space and time with a puff of smoke. Same way with the third and forth weapons. Finally her curiosity got the better of her; watching the boy make things disappear was more interesting than her own ego. Maybe there was something she could learn by looking over his shoulder. Not much, probably, but something.

Strangely Naruto jerked his hand out of the fifth cloud of smoke and pushed his chair as far away from the seal as it could go. Had something gone wrong? Was it going to blow up? Sakura had seen Naruto's homemade fireworks... maybe this was some kind of trap! What was he planning? Sakura prepared to leap under the table if anything started smoking.

After several seconds Naruto relaxed. Slowly a grin spread over his face. Leaping up from his chair the boy pumped his fist into the air "Yes! Construction for the WIN!"

Construction? What is that? Sakura wondered. She had never actually looked into seal making. She had a few exploding tags in her pouch, the kinds that make smoke screens - not actual exploding tags, those were too dangerous to sell to academy students. But she was going to get some after today, her sensei would probably be very impressed at her arsenal of tools. Storage seals were nice, but usually they were pretty expensive. She had heard that really good ones could go for thousands of ryo. Apparently it took a long time to learn how to make them. They probably used this 'Construction', Sakura guessed. It must be pretty big from the way Naruto was dancing. Or maybe not, he was usually over the top like this anyway so it might just be something pretty basic too.

Sakura's hearing - one of the best in the class if Iruka-sensei was right, much better than Naruto's - picked up on someone coming down the hall. She had spent time learning the teachers footsteps. Iruka-sensei had been very proud of her! But something else caught her eye so she didn't have time to run to the door so that she looked prepared. Naruto's scroll was suddenly emitting oily green smoke. "Naruto-" Sakura tried to warn the boy but before she could finish he saw for himself.

"Shoot! Get down." The boy leaped for Sakura, who was already complying. The 'hero' only succeeded in knocking her head against the desk and giving her a very big headache. As the anger was building inside Sakura heard a great snap erupted from the scroll. The scroll ripped itself to pieces as five deadly sharp kunai shot from the storage seal at high speed.

Team seven's new Sensei chose the exact wrong moment to open the door. Sakura couldn't exactly see what happened because Naruto's ugly blond head was in the way, but she did see him going down. There were four distinct thuds and one kind of squishy sound. Several seconds passed as Sakura's mind tried to figure out what just happened. "Oh my gawd," She whispered. "Oh my gawd! He's dead. He's dead! Oh my gawd! He's dead!"

What would happen now? Their sensei was dead, before she even got to meet him! The ANBU were going to hunt them down and arrest them. She would end up spending the rest of her life in jail, where there were killers and criminals and rapists! She was doomed! What would her dad say? But it wasn't her fault, it wasn't her fault! That stupid, useless, worthless, bungling, blond-headed, evil little-

"Well, that's a welcome," Someone said near the door. A tuft of white hair popped up over the top of Naruto's mug. The Sensei! He was alive! Relief spread through Sakura as the shadow of the rapist in her future faded away. Her Sensei was alive, she was safe. She was safe. She was... being crushed by an ugly blond-headed bungling brat. "Get off me, Naruto!"

Naruto groaned as he was kicked away by a well placed foot to the groin. Sakura grumbled as she pushed herself off the ground. "It is a pleasure to meet you sensei!" She bowed deeply to her new sensei. Maybe she could make up for that bad first impression. On the ground beneath Naruto (who had almost killed her new sensei) was not the image she wanted to give. Glancing up she saw that her kunai was lodged deeply in a bag of oranges. The man looked young? She could not tell. He had white hair and she could only see one eye. Why did he cover so much of his face, and what about his eye, and what was with the oranges? Questions swirled around her mind, not that she would ask them - at least not until she got more comfortable with him. It would be rude to ask him when she really didn't know him at all.

"You!" Obviously Naruto did. Sakura could not help smiling when she saw his face. He looked like he had seen a ghost. He was almost as freaked out by their living sensei as she had been about a dead one. It was... gratifying to see the prankster like that. "Heh, hey, you're not still mad about that time are you?"

Their new sensei scratched his blue mask, "Hey Naruto, fancy having you for a student." The man smiled, Sakura thought he did at least. "And..." The man turned to Sakura. She stood up a little straighter when that single eye stopped on her. "Haruno Sakura. And Uchiha Sasuke." The man hardly glanced at the genius sitting by the window.

Sakura knew that first impressions were rarely good judgments of people (except for Naruto, he was exactly what he appeared, even if he knew a little bit about seals, he still was an idiot) she had already collected several interesting bits of information about her new sensei. First off, he didn't want to be here, they made him nervous. He was standing on his heels. He wouldn't look at Sasuke. He was shying from Naruto; obviously the boy had done something traumatic to the man... most likely something to do with the man's face: he hadn't stopped itching since he spotted the blond.

"Well, I guess I should introduce myself then. Right?" He looked around - noticeably avoiding looking any of them in the face. "I am Kakashi-sensei. My hobby is reading. I like miso soup with eggplant. And I dislike people. Meet me tomorrow at training area 27 around... nine... ish. Don't be too late?"

"What would you like us to do until then, sensei?" Sakura asked.

"I don't know," Kakashi shrugged, "Go home I guess. Don't kill anybody too important? See ya."

_Naruto,_

_You'll be spending time training with various instructors throughout the week. For today just meet with me and Team Seven at training area 27. There will be a test._

_Kakashi Sensei_

_Weekly Training Schedule_

_Monday: Ebisu - Chakra control _

_Tuesday: Raido - Skills Training_

_Wednesday: With Team - Teamwork_

_Thursday: Anko - Tools, traps, poisons, etc_

_Friday: Hayate - Ninja Techniques, Battle Strategy, and Shadow Clones_

_Saturday: Personal Training … you find somebody_

_Sunday: Off Day - Do whatever_

"This isn't going to become a regular thing with him, is it?" Sasuke and Naruto shrugged. "I mean come on, even Naruto was here before him!"

Sasuke glanced over at the blond. "Sakura, Naruto was here before you."

"I was sharpening my kunai, the ones that Naruto tried to kill our SENSEI with!"

"Hey! Two things wrong, there! One, I did not _try_ to kill Cock-eye-sensei. There was just something wrong with the meter of the capacitor fields. It's his own dang fault for walking in when he did. And two! You were not sharpening your kunai, you were doing your hair so you could impr-" Naruto was going to finish his sentence with a very clever comment about his new teammate but found his airways constricted before he could even get to it. It was a pity, because it was really well thought out, there was no way that Sasuke could have come up with a comparable retort. He would have won the round! Plus seeing Sakura's face would have been worth the pain. At least then he would have earned it. Instead of getting beaten for no reason he could be beaten for thoroughly insulting Sasuke. Darn Sakura and her bad timing, darn her, darn her.

"Sakura, you've got strength, but your technique is poor. You'll wear yourself out too quickly. Move your hand so your thumb pushes down on his trachea. If you're lucky you'll cause his windpipe to collapse. That way his own body can strangle him." Naruto went limp, the grip was too strong on his neck and honestly he didn't feel like putting in the effort to try and get free. Sakura had stopped strangling him and loosened her hands enough so he could breath (thank gawd!). Crouching on top of a stump was their white haired sensei.

"How- what- when-"

Naruto heard a page turn - sight was an issue right now, his eyeballs needed more oxygen to work properly. "Just now." Cock-eye-sensei answered. Naruto had no time to react when Sakura suddenly dropped - nearly shoved him down - and jumped to prim and proper attention. Naruto should have been thinking about how the psychotic girl nearly killed him - was even getting advice on how to kill him faster - and was now smiling like an angel, he was too busy noticing how cute she looked when his vision was all fuzzy.

"We've been eagerly waiting sensei!"

"Uhh, there was this old woman who asked me to deliver something for her." Kakashi stood up and hid his book in his vest. That is a terrible lie, Naruto thought. What were they: some bad fantasy novel? He'd seen old ladies lie better than that. On that note, old ladies were actually really evil. He would never accept any from them to deliver anywhere. If it was food, it was poisoned. If it wasn't food, it was something valuable that they could call the police for. He'd been down both those roads and they both ended in the Hokage's office trying to convince the old man that it wasn't his fault. Old lady = evil lady in his hand book, he'd even written it on his hands once.

"Oh, I see." Even Sakura didn't believe it! Really... was this guy even a ninja?

"Kakashi-sensei" Sakura asked after a pause, "What are we going to be doing today?" Leave it to Sakura to actually make them do something today. Naruto had a seal to fix, and personally he wanted to spend as little time with the scarecrow as possible. It didn't look like he would be doing much as a "case manager" from the way that he left at the academy. Iruka-sensei had looked pretty ticked at the 'copy ninja' when Naruto had read him the note. On top of all that the man's handwriting was pretty terrible. Naruto wondered if he still had some of the weapons-grade itching powder left in hiding somewhere. No... the ANBU took it away after last time. But the ingredients weren't that hard to get. He would need to start around training area 42 then-

"Yes, Sakura. Thank you for asking. I'm testing you."

"Oh! So like a pretest, see what our skills are. Right?"

"No." Sakura's fake happy face slipped. "If you don't pass the whole team will be sent back for another year at the Academy. Which means you and Sasuke, Sakura. Since Naruto isn't actually part of my team I can't fail him. But-" Naruto watched Sakura's face slide all the way off her head and shatter on the ground- maybe she would actually look at him as something more than a worthless brat! And if Sasuke failed too, he would be better than the 'genius'... maybe she would finally stop deifying the bastard! "I can find some other suitable punishment for him instead. How do you feel about itching powder, Naruto?"

Naruto jumped. "Heh, heh. You're not still mad about that whole thing, are you?"

Kakashi scratched his mask. Naruto swallowed hard, "So, what about that test?"

The captain of Team Seven reached into his fanny-pack - WEAPON'S POUCH! (see footnote 2) and pulled out a single silver bell. "The goal is fairly simple. In order to pass, you have to take the bell from me."

"Sensei, if there are three of us. Why is there only one bell?"

"I, unfortunately, can't fail Naruto like I can you two. So one bell."

"But, still, wouldn't that mean that one of us would fail any way?"

"To pass you need to be in possession of a bell."

"But not-"

"Bell."

"There-"

"Bell."

"But!"

"Bell."

"Sakura, just stop already."

"He talks!" Naruto jumped back and pointed. Was it immature? Yes, yes it was. What else did anyone expect? Sasuke and Sakura shot him evil glances, Sakura's held a great deal more venom than the genius's. "Shut up Naruto."

Naruto shrugged, "Well I'm going. Might as well give you guys a better chance at passing. Bye." Naruto was already walking away when a sound stopped him dead. Kakashi was still scratching his mask. Itching powder. Confiscated. Weapon's grade. Punishment. Threat. Evil glee radiating from the scarecrow. Ramen. Thoughts and words jumped through an dance, inspired by the sound of fingernails against cloth. Except ramen, ramen was always on his mind and just seemed to fit with everything.

"On second thought-" Naruto spun around and walked back to his former position, "I think I'll take this test. I mean, it is important right, sensei?"

"No, not really. You're all going to fail anyway, so it doesn't matter much if you're here or at the Library." Naruto really hoped that there wasn't a demonic smile hidden by the blue mask. "You may begin at any time." Kakashi said as he took out his little orange book again and began to read.

"You're not actually going to be reading, are you?"

"Oh, I'll be fine. Go ahead."

"Okay." Naruto shrugged and dashed forward. If this teacher wasn't going to take him seriously he was going to get a big surprise! He was better than everyone made him out to be. See! He was already within arm's length of the bell. It was his! _THUMP_. Or not. Naruto went arching through the air in a beautiful smooth parabola. Kakashi held his foot in the air for a second before standing on both feet again. "Next?"

"Ahhhhhh!" Naruto screamed as he rushed forward. He had to get that bell, he had to. Over and over in his head the words 'Weapons Grade Itching Powder', 'Confiscated', and 'Pain', repeated. The scarecrow's threat had not been lost on him. _Sorry, Sakura-chan_, he thought as he pulled out a kunai, _I am not going to go through that_!

Again he reached out for the loosely tied string. And again he was sent sailing. "You going to help him?" Kakashi asked the other two.

"Uhhh." Sakura couldn't speak, and Naruto was sent to the sky for the third time. Naruto looked down from above and wondered if she was enjoying his pain. Next to her, Sasuke was doing something funny with his hands. Hand seals! He realized. Naruto could make out boar and then horse and then tiger. That's funny those were often conjoined for fire elemental flows in seals. Wait... Naruto's mind filtered out the pain in his chest for a second. Fire... Uchiha's were famous for their fire techniques, he had read that in one of the histories of Konoha that he had read. "SAKURA, GET DOWN!" Sakura looked up at him confused, her line of sight was mirrored by Kakashi - possibly a fatal mistake. Even on his downward path Naruto felt a rush of hot air from the resulting explosion.

As the smoke cleared Naruto could see that everyone was unhurt - surprised, but unhurt. Kakashi was standing about twenty feet from where he had been before and Sakura was huddled on the ground her hands covering her head. "Sasuke, you idiot!" Naruto yelled over to his so-called team mate. "What were you thinking, you could have hurt Sakura! Think about what is around you before you start flinging over-powered blasts of fire everywhere. Jeez! They call me an idiot and even I know that." Naruto wasn't going to say why he knew that - it involved a pilfered exploding tag and a premature detonation.

Even the mighty Sasuke could feel embarrassment! The great genius looked away and snorted, he was trying to look aloof, but he was embarrassed - Naruto could tell. Kakashi had actually put away his book and was eyeing Sasuke carefully. "Impressive Sasuke. I suppose I should have expected it from an Uchiha genius. However, Naruto is right. You need to be more aware of your surroundings."

Sasuke growled and pulled out a deadly sharp kunai. "Let's see if you can dodge this." Naruto didn't even see the blade leave Sasuke's hand. His arm blurred and suddenly the Cock-eye-sensei was holding the blade between two fingers several inches from his face. "Hmm, not bad."

He was mocking them - Naruto realized. Okay yes he was mocking Sasuke but in turn he was mocking all of them! "Sakura, the fire is gone you can get up now." Naruto tried walking around quietly so that he could try a surprise attack, but the scarecrow even had that covered. Sensei lazily flicked the kunai he had caught back. It landed right in front of Naruto, a reminder that he knew exactly where Naruto was. Maybe this guy was a better ninja than Naruto had first made him out to be.

"Sakura, if you're going to try sinking into the ground, you're going to need to go a little bit deeper." A puff of dust obscured Naruto's view of their new sensei. A second, nearly identical plume of dirt covered Sakura a moment latter. "See that's better." The dust settled revealing Kakashi crouching on the ground, and Sakura's head. The blade of a kunai was pressed against her throat. Nervously Kakashi dropped the dangerous blade. "Sorry, force of habit." He explained the near decapitation away.

"Now as for you two, that was too slow. I was left wide open there for a second." Again Naruto gasped as the white haired man disappeared again. Suddenly he felt a presence behind him, "And you've missed your chance."

Where did he get the rope? Naruto wanted to ask while the hemp wound its way - seemingly of its own accord - around him. Things were happening way too fast now. He couldn't see, couldn't make out what was going on. Rope and fire - was Sasuke trying to barbecue him too? And on top of all the confusion going on around, Naruto found that yet again he was in the air. Hmm, there was something odd about this time... what was it? It was like- like -like he couldn't move. And that he was tumbling forward. And that the ground was coming up fast. Oh yeah, the rational part of him finally kicked in, you're tumbling through the air with no way to balance yourself. Brace your face for impact. "Sssssshhhhhhhhhi-"

_SLAM_

Sakura couldn't do anything. One second she had been standing above ground, then next her entire body was being drug under and buried. There was dirt in places that shouldn't have dirt in them. She felt so unclean. No amount of scrubbing would free all the dirt from under her fingernails and under her toenails, and, and, everywhere. Ignoring the whole "being dead thing" part of her wished that Kakashi had slipped and decapitated her anyway.

Okay yes, she did have the best seat in the house to watch Naruto get hogtied and kicked into the air - and his landing was probably the funniest thing she had seen all week. But really! It was not worth it! And Sasuke was getting his butt kicked anyway. This was definitely on the top twenty five list for worst day ever.

And again, disappear, rope, kick. Executed like some physical math problem Kakashi proved again that those three addends equaled one genin-hopeful face down, in the dirt, several feet from where he started. Kakashi looked up from his book, "Fail, have fun at the academy."

"Wait!" Naruto pushed himself up from the ground... using his forehead. One tended to learn very strange skills when running from a organization of highly trained ninja, forehead locomotion being one of the more eclectic arts one picked up. "Like hell I'm gonna let you fail us like that!"

"Naruto, why do you care? I can't send you back... and I lied about the itching powder, the research department won't let that stuff out of their sight."

"Yeah, but you can't just send Sakura back like that! You're a jonin! How is that even fair."

"Guess what, kid? Sometimes life isn't fair." Naruto couldn't see the old man move, but he knew where he would go. It was the same every time. He tried to get behind him and then he would attack. In the library, there was this book about basic assassination techniques, 'get behind the target and knife them in the back' was about all the book had to offer. So if he was always doing the same thing, one could probably guess that he was going to repeat the action again. And if he could predict where he was going to be, even if he could not see him, Naruto could hit Kakashi.

"Heya!" Naruto swung his foot around to catch the white haired man... completely forgetting this his arms were tied. And funny thing, but it is pretty difficult to keep balanced without the use of arms. Naruto slipped in the dusty soil and suddenly he found himself horizontal in the air. The world was spinning around him thanks to the momentum of his foot. Revolving between sky and earth Naruto thought he saw the dark blue mask of Kakashi pop into existence. And his foot struck something! … And so did his face.

"Hrggg" A pained gurgle came from Kakashi-sensei as he doubled over. He was rocking back and forth on his heels, grasping the forefront of his legs. A warm kind of satisfaction bubbled up in Naruto hearing that. Yes, his face was submerged in several inches of dirt, but he could live with that. Because he was going to end this here! Sasuke and his fire could suck on this! Naruto struggled to worm his hands through the rope so he could form a hand seal. There had been this long list of hand seals he needed to make on the scroll he had stolen. But there was this really cool footnote - and apparently no one reads footnotes, why was that Naruto wondered - mentioning a custom hand seal that could do the work of fifteen. It had not been that hard to learn, Naruto figured they should have taught the costume seal first, no memorizing!

"Shadow Clone Technique!"

A funny feeling washed through Naruto, like parts of him that he didn't know he had were slipping off. At least his brain wasn't tearing itself apart this time, but it still felt weird. There was a puff of heavy smoke and sun was obscured by a copy of his head.

"Do you like the ground or something?" One of his clones asked.

"Do we like the taste of dirt? Because, if we do I did not get that part of his brain," Another chimed in.

"I'm not going to go around eating it, if that's what you're asking."

"No, no, I'm just wondering because last time, he had his face in the dirt too."

"Leading to my first question, is our original in love with the ground?"

"Just shut up and help me!"

"You can't tell us what to do."

"What do you mean? I created you!"

"Excuse me, I am an individual thank you very much. I do what I want and no one is going to tell me what I need to do or not!"

"It's just like a comedy sketch." Sakura blinked. Initially she had been amazed when the three clones of Naruto appeared. He hadn't been able to make even one, two days ago, now he was going around making clones that could talk like they were individuals. It wasn't exactly top notch genjutsu but it was still pretty difficult. Hell, it had taken a week to get her clones to even wave! Not that it had been that difficult, and after the waving it was pretty easy to get them to do other things, running, jumping, dancing, you know the important things. Talking was a lot more difficult. The trick was actually finding a way to throw your voice like a ventriloquist. Then again Naruto was a clown so maybe it came naturally with his stupidity.

"Fine, Mr. I-cannot-be-troubled-to-leave-the-ground, I'll help you!"

Kakashi's brain had a little bit of trouble processing what happened after that. His mind had already been weakened by the sheer absurdity of the whole exchange between Naruto and his clones. And that was on top of the shock of seeing a genin create three shadow clones, something that - yes - took him a good deal of concentration to do. The following thoughts race - no, more like meandered - through his head after the clones offer of assistance: "Naruto, flying, Naruto, high speeds, Naruto, face, Naruto. Naruto... flying at high speeds, toward my face. Cool! Wait. Naruto flying at high speed toward my face! Crap!"

Unfortunately for the scarecrow his thoughts were just a bit too slow for him to be able to completely avoid the speeding boy. Maybe it was that he wasn't taking them seriously, maybe it was the complete ridiculousness of the situation, maybe it was the fork in his legs that hadn't completely forgotten Naruto's foot quite yet... Whatever the reason, Kakashi - a seasoned jonin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves - was caught off guard and his gut became intimately acquainted with one of the hardest heads in the village.

"Bell. I has it." One of the clones leaned over and picked the bell off of Kakashi's belt.

Sakura couldn't believe it. She just couldn't believe it. First off, clones weren't supposed to be able to touch... well, anything! An Naruto wasn't supposed to be able to knock out a jonin level ninja. It just wasn't supposed to happen like that. Okay, yes, part of her enjoyed the white haired half-faced lazy-ass... teacher getting it. Part of her reeaallyy enjoyed it. She shouldn't enjoy the pain of anyone but Naruto that much, but... Oh dear what was she turning into? She was just an ordinary girl, really! She wasn't some kind of sadist... was she? No! No! NO! Just Naruto, and he deserved it! Naruto, think about Naruto, that might justify all this, she thought.

Naruto's clones were different, that much was obvious. However they were still clones of Konoha's Number One Obnoxious Ninja, meaning there were now four times the annoying. And the stupid, four times the stupid. If there was much of a brain at all in that clone (and that was still questionable, yes they seemed to be able to intact separately with purpose, but gosh they were acting dumb) it would have noticed that Kakashi was coming around again. He was just standing their grinning like an idiot - an expression very fitting for his face because he was an idiot. And then it disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi's foot came up almost faster than Sakura could see. The bell shot up into the sky, higher and higher until she couldn't distinguish it any more. For a second everybody stood, or sat, or lay still trying to find where in the sky the bell had disappeared to. Sensei was the first one to spot it. Sakura couldn't even see it yet so he must have had really good eyesight. The lazy teacher bounded up off the ground and into the air in an instant.

"There!" One of the clones pointed to a small dark speck in the sky.

"I'll get it!" The third clone called. And it leaped into the air, following the bell and their new teacher. Naruto's clones once again surprised Sakura as it shot past Kakashi and grabbed hold of the bell. "Got it!" Even from below Sakura could tell the clone had one of Naruto's trademarked goofy grins on. "Whoa! Catch!" Kakashi's fist dispersed the clone a fraction of a second after it had tossed the bell away.

"Wait! What? But how? How did he get up there that fast?" Sakura gapped. Naruto was breaking all the rules, yes he was messing with their new teacher and that made Sakura very happy, but still! How the hell did a genin, the worst genin in the academy, manage to out jump a highly trained veteran shinobi?

"It's a weight differential thing." One of the clones, the one that had not done anything yet answered. "We have the physical strength of our original, so what would happen if we weighed, say... one half of what our original weighed, or maybe a fourth. The same amount of effort would render greater results, right?"

"What? How? How can you guys weigh any less than the real Naruto?" Sakura was dumbfounded. Not only was this clone not freaking out like the other one and the original, but he actually sounded smart. This had to be some kind of whacked out dream.

The clone shrugged, "I don't know, didn't get that part of the brain."

"Uh, what?"

The clone glanced down at Sakura, "I really don't like repeating my answer. Listen the first time."

"No, no, no." Sakura shook her head, it was about all she could do, stuck in the ground like this. "What was that about brains?"

"Oh." The clone shrugged. Sakura wondered if Shikamaru had put on a Naruto costume. But WHY? How could the dolt ever convince lazy-butt to dress up like dumb-butt? The clone nodded toward his original, or at least Sakura thought was the original, this was all getting too confusing to follow anymore. "Smart-one over there ripped his brain in three, because he didn't read the warning label. Hence us."

Sakura blinked and turned back to the fight that was going on in front of her. She might as well watch, given the only other thing she could do was talk to the clone with apparently one third the brain of dirt-for-brains. He had challenged her worldview enough for one day, thank-you-very-much. It was time for some more senseless violence. And from what she could tell, senseless was exactly the right word for it. The last remaining clone was engaged in hand to hand combat with Kakashi... and doing surprisingly well.

"Tch, show off." The clone next to her chimed in. Kakashi was still reading his book yes, so he probably wasn't going all out. But Sakura had to admit, he had beaten the stuffing out of Sasuke while reading the book. So why was he having so much trouble getting the bell back from Naruto. The bell in question was hanging from the clone's teeth, jingling ever time it moved. Really it shouldn't be that hard to get the bell, the idiot hadn't even secured it properly! Was he just taking this all as some joke! The least he could do was hide it in his weapon pouch, but no he was taunting the jonin! Stupid, stupid Naruto!

"Hey, just finish already!" Naruto - the one tied up - yelled at his clone. That was probably the wrong thing to say. For being impossibly good (for a Naruto) the clone didn't seem to have a very long attention span - even shorter than the original's it appeared.

"What?" It turned and shouted through clenched teeth. Kakashi - despite being preoccupied with reading his book (Sakura wondered what the book could be. She loved to read and wondered if maybe it might be something she would like to read, Kakashi seemed to enjoy it) he was not one to miss such an opportunity. His fist caught the Naruto-clone in the jaw, dispelling it with a puff of smoke. The part of her who had been trained to enjoy Naruto in pain cheered and the new found part of her that was quickly being trained to dislike their new teacher groaned.

However the clone had jerked back just before it was dispelled sending the bell high up into the air and right in front of Sasuke, who was still squirming face down in the dirt. Sasuke looked at the bell resting in front of his nose. Kakashi turned to look at Sasuke. The genius of the year, Sakura's hero, the cool, untouchable Uchiha, ate the bell.

Sakura couldn't believe that she was being tied - by her teammates - to the wooden punching post. It was humiliating, degrading! How could this have happened to her? She was supposed to be better than Naruto! Why was she being the one punished? What had gone wrong, where had she gone wrong?

"Naruto, Sasuke, lunch." Kakashi held out two large black bento boxes. Sakura recognized the gold embossed symbol on the lid immediately. They were from the most expensive bento store in town. Their reviews were always the highest. She had always wanted to have one. Apparently the store only used the highest quality ingredients. 'Each box is a culinary and visual work of art.' 'Eat one of these at least once in your life.' 'Heaven in a lunch box.' The food magazines glowed. Already her mouth was watering. And they were being wasted on boys. Boys would never understand just how magnificent those lunches would be. She wanted one so bad. (Footnote 3)

"Hey Naruto," Sasuke turned to face his team mate. Sasuke reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Holding his hand out he revealed the small silver bell. "Here."

Sakura blinked. Naruto blinked. Kakashi... winked. It was unprecedented, Sasuke actually speaking to Naruto, much less doing anything like that. "No! Sasuke you can't do that! If you give it to him, you'll fail and have to go back the academy!"

"I know that!" Sasuke snapped. Sakura shrank back into the ground. Turning back to Naruto, "What are doing? Just take it," Sasuke pushed.

Naruto looked at the bell and then back into the Sasuke's eyes. "No." He shook his head, "You should keep it. Sakura-chan's right."

Sakura blinked. Sasuke blinked. Kakashi closed his book. "Really, Naruto? Are you sure? Just because I can't fail you, doesn't mean you can't lose."

Naruto swallowed back the predictions of pain. "Yeah. I'm sure."

"Hmm okay, Naruto. Your call."

Sarutobi looked up from the scroll he was reading when Kakashi walked into the room. "How did it go, Kakashi?"

"You planned this. I don't know how; but you planned it," Kakashi growled as he looked over the Hokage's shelves.

"And the results were?"

"What? Oh, they passed." Sarutobi had been renowned as a teacher, and as any teacher worth his stuff, he could sniff out when something was wrong with a student. Looking down at the paperwork replica of the Mountain Country he wondered if he should try to figure out what was distracting Kakashi. The thought briefly entered his mind that his paperwork was probably more important at the moment and that all he was really doing was procrastinating it, before the whole thought was violently ripped from his common-sense and thrown like an explosive kunai out the window.

"What is it, Kakashi?"

"Do you have any scrolls about sentient clones?"

"No, why?"

Kakashi sighed deeply, "When he's a chunin, I don't have to deal with him right?"

"Naruto? Only as much as any jonin instructor has to deal with their former charges. Is he really that bad? Or are you still miffed about the itching powder?"

"No. Well yes, but... I can't tell if that kid is an idiot or a genius."

"More than likely: both."

"I was afraid of that. Bringing us back to - You planned this. I don't know how; but you planned this."

"Oh, it can't have been that bad. The ANBU collected his supplies last week. He had a surprising amount of _Ferrnia Tellinus, _he wasn't exhibiting any odd behaviors was he?"

"As odd as he ever is."

"Hmm, I see. That stuff is incredibly hard to find, useful in things ranging from narcotics to tranquilizers. On its own, the extract from the leaves can leave a person in a state of mild euphoria for several hours. Drying the root makes a quick sleeping medicine. The Yamanaka's have several plants they guard with a passion, not many others are known. I have not gotten any reports of Naruto being anywhere near the Yamanaka's for over a month. _Ferrnia Tellinus _becomes impotent if not properly stored within days. But I'm rambling. Tell me, Kakashi: how did the test go?"

Kakashi looked over the shelf one last time before he tore himself away from his pursuit. Sarutobi had to admit he looked more alive than he had seen him for a long time. It was the little things, he had straightened his mask, he was standing straighter, and his charka was moving cleaner. "It was... all right."

"Really, they understood?"

"I suppose. Sasuke and Naruto are both surprising..."

Sarutobi was sure that the copy-ninja would never have admitted it, except under the influence of large amounts of alcohol, but there was a hint of pride in his voice.

"Hon-san!" Naruto tried to contain himself as he walked through the door into the library. It was the first time he had seen Hon since he had graduated from the academy and he was just bursting to tell the man the news.

He carefully removed his shoes and put on the slippers the librarian had set out specifically for him. They were clean and white, except on the left slipper there was a small black dot of ink. He remembered that day. He had been so excited that Hon was going to let him start writing seals. (He wasn't actually making seals that day, it had actually been Naruto's first calligraphy lesson.) The ink bottle had somehow been knocked over and the blank liquid spilled over paper, table, and almost made it to the floor before Hon had twisted the cap of the bottle. All the ink flew back into the bottle like magic. All the ink except a drop that had landed on Naruto's slipper. Naruto had thought that Hon would be mad, that he would kick him out or yell at him. "Let's try this another day, okay Naruto - when you're more ready." A week later Hon brought out the bottle of ink again.

"Naruto- kun. How was your test? I'm sorry about yesterday, I was out of town picking up a new set of volumes to add to the collection." Hon looked up from the gigantic library scroll that rested on the large desk. Holding his hand out, the man caught a scroll as it puffed into existence above the paper.

"Oh, it went well, I guess. I mean _I passed!_" Naruto wanted to jump and down. "I am genin, for real!"

"Excellent, most excellent Naruto!" The librarian beamed. "Congratulations!"

Naruto shivered with pride. He had wanted to leap into the sky when Cock-eye-sensei had said they all passed. Yeah, he might have been trying to get on Sakura-chan's good side when he gave her some of the chicken, but she really wanted it. He could tell. The scarecrow had been so scary, when he saw what he was doing; it was like a storm had rolled in behind Kakashi, but then he changed so quickly. There was nothing that could bring this day down. Nothing.

"Did your test have something to do with night vision."

Nothing except that.

"Uh, kind of."

"I was just wondering. Because I noticed you logged an addition to the library, a variation on the Sight Night seal." The librarian opened up the scroll. Naruto now recognized it as the scroll he had copied the Sight Night seal onto when he had changed it to include a deactivation clause in the sensor loop. "Not a bad addition, I think. Simple, practical, though something one might overlook during conception. I think I will make it the definitive version. Seal of the Thief: Night Sight, by Senju Hon, revised by Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto's jaw dropped. "Seriously?"

"Yes. It was a worthy update, one badly needed - I would think. And I already wrote it down. Observe." He tossed the scroll (something he would never do with a book, but seemed perfectly fine doing with the tightly rolled papers) to Naruto. It was true, going down the leading edge of the scroll in Hon's tight, perfect calligraphy, was Naruto's name underneath the librarians own.

"Awesome."

"Naruto, there remains a few more details I want to discuss with you."

"Uhh, sure." Naruto's mind didn't seem to be responding right now. Something was stuck, trying to work its way through the mental canals. This had to be some dream, right? There was no way this could be happening.

"I suppose I would like to initiate this conversation in the following manner: Naruto, how old do you think I am?"

"Old."

"I was expecting an answer in less general terms, but yes. I am as you put it: old. I know you are young, but I know you've thought about it, a legacy. Everyone dreams of one. A memory is the only form of immortality we mortals can attain. You dream of creating a legacy as a Hokage, my legacy is the scrolls and seals stored within this library. Naruto, I have told you that I am unable to mold chakra with in my own body, right?"

"Yeah, that's why you use seals to do it instead, right? Like when you made a seal to do the clone technique to graduate the academy."

"Right. Unfortunately there was no precedent for a seal that could perform the functions I needed. So I created one, and then another. Eventually I developed a completely new branch of fuuinjutsu, Battle Seals. However, after my eventual demise as it stands now, this library will be the definitive collection of battle seals. None will come after." The librarian fell silent. His eyes floated over the room taking in all the shelves, the books, the scrolls, until they rested on Naruto. "Naruto, what would be fair compensation for six years of service?"

"I don't know," Naruto's throat felt dry, "Why?"

"It is customary that a master, as he takes on an apprentice, will repay the family of his new disciple for the years that he will be unable to earn an income for them. A tradition largely overlooked now, but one that I wish to continue."

That clot in Naruto's mind was nearly knocked loose as something even bigger rammed itself though the channels of his brain. He had read about that tradition in a book. Apprentices learned everything about their master's trade, they were the masters legacy. They were trained so the skills of the master would live on even after his death.

"You- you want to make me your..." Naruto's voice cracked. But Hon smiled and nodded.

"Yes, Naruto. I would like to take you as my apprentice, if you should accept the offer."

The realization of what Hon said tore through Naruto's brain. It leaked out in tears. It tried to pushed itself out of his chest. He could become Hon's apprentice. He had learned the shadow clone, graduated, passed, and became an apprentice to his idol in three short days and it was too much for him to handle. Words wouldn't come to Naruto, so he just nodded. Nodded and cried - it was all he could manage. His legs felt like they would give out at any moment. Best week. Ever!

"A dinner then, perhaps. Ichiraku-san would be most pleased to hear of your accomplishments, I think."

"Next on the Agenda is Senju Hon, here to make a request for research. Hon-san, the floor is yours."

The old man bowed deeply. His kimono was covered in neat lines of tight calligraphy and strange symbols. They were battle seals sewn into his garments. "Thank you, Hokage-sama.

"I do not know how many of you are aware, but I have been charged over the past couple years with discovering the origins of the genetic mutations responsible for the phenomena known as 'bloodline limits.' I believe that I may have found a suitable answer. However to be certain, I must conduct several experiments that would need you're consent, council. The timing of my discovery is fortunate, for at the moment, there is an excellent opportunity to prove my theory."

"And just what is this theory." Nara-san asked.

"Historical record shows that Bloodline Limits have appeared in every elemental country and many other countries as well. There had - to date - been no connection made about their appearances. Most believe them to be random mutations. I, however, have doubted that. The frequency at which we would see mutations concerning the chakra circulatory system if they were completely random would mean we might see a new Bloodline Limit every generation or so. As that is not the case, I have looked into factors that might cause the mutations responsible.

"Recently I have uncovered an interesting correlation amongst the first known location of many of the Bloodline Limits. In most cases, the Bloodline Limit occur where a Biiju attack has been recorded. Thus leading to my theory that exposure to the demonic chakras associated with the tailed-beasts causes the mutations responsible for the unique Bloodline Limits. We know that as children, particularly around the time of our birth, we are incredibly susceptible to chakra influence, leading me to further conclude - with support from historical records - that the Bloodline Limits originate from children who are in the womb or recently born at the time of a Biiju attack.

"As you remember we, ourselves, are home to the most recent attack of a Biiju. Leading to my request that I be allowed to conduct experiments on children ages eleven to thirteen to look for anomalies that are or could become new or different Bloodline limits."

-Chapter 2 End-

Footnote 1: Fun fact, the vast majority of robes worn by Kage and Elders are made by a single family in the Country of Silk. Throughout time they have integrated pockets specifically designed for papers, weapon, scrolls, books, flasks of highly corrosive alcohol, and other unusual odds and ends that people in power have need of.

Footnote 2: Just because it looks like a fanny pack - is labeled as a fanny pack on the store shelves - and the general population of Konoha calls them fanny packs doesn't mean that Haruno Sakura can't make herself sound more professional and call it a weapons pouch; really fanny pack!

Footnote 3: Actually the Bento shop has a special deal with Kakashi - the ownr being one of of the ninjas the impossible teacher had failed over the years. After having to suffer through one of the truly terrible lunches that Kakashi used to buy for the standard bell test he decided to make the best lunch boxes possible. Even though he never became the ninja he had dreamed of being, Kakashi's test did inspire him to go on and create the most well respected Bento Shop in all of Konoha. He now thanks his 'inspiration' by providing Kakashi two free lunches every years so that "future generations don't have to suffer through what I had to" as he said in a recent interview with Konoha Culinary. A little lesser known fact is that Kakashi is actually supplied with a third bento box marked especially for him - he has not to date eaten any of them. There is a small corner of the Konoha landfill reserved for them after the first one leaked and caused several mutant zombies to rise up and attack the general populous of the village.

Onyx: Well folks, there you have it, chapter two of the Librarian Chronicles. Chapter two clocked in at about 13 thousand words - so in total the exposition of this story clocks out at nearly 25 thousand worlds! Take that pacing! Also I would like to thank my marvelous beta: XxRazorgazexX!

Clone 1: Onyx, you have problems.

Onyx: What? Just because I think stories should be paced at a reasonable speed? I see nothing wrong with that. And besides, I created you three didn't I?

Clones: Not helping.

Onyx: Anyway, now that the exposition is finally done we can move on into the real meat of it. However, just fair warning to the reader -

Clone 1: If you have any.

Clone 3: Shut up, both of you and get to the point. Why are we here? why are you forcing us to participate in this form of literary masochism?

Clone 2: I thought you liked pain.

Clone 3: No, you got the masochistic side. I enjoy _causing _pain - I'm the sadist.

Cone 1: You said that way too happy.

Clone 3: I know.

Onxy: To answer your question, I have called you here-

Clone 1: forced.

Onxy: to reveal your proper names!

Clone 3: If you call me Sir Clonesalot the fourth, I will drop you faster than you can type the word f-

Onxy: YAAAAAA! You can't say that word! Anyway no, your names in perpetuity are: Crazy."

Clone 2: YEAH! I'm Crazy.

Onxy: Yes, yes you are. Deadpan

Clone 1: I did not participate in this naming sequence.

Onxy: and Psycho.

Clone 3: Psycho?

Onxy: Yep, Psycho.

Psycho: And that's all the time we have for AFTER CHAPTER SHORTS, read, review, search in vain for the author's body, and review again.


	3. Chapter 3

(Footnotes can be found at the end of the chapter, after the After-Chapter-Short, for your convenience. Try using ctrl + end to quickly reach the end of the chapter)

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto waited. Monitoring his breath, he slowly exhaled. He could feel the warm air exit his body, but he couldn't hear it. Good. He could feel every inch of his skin. He was calm, he was awake, he was ready.

Filling a measure of chakra with intent, he prepared the simple jutsu. "Blood Style: Bloody Tips," He whispered. The tips of his fingers tingle as blood seeped up to the surface. He wouldn't laugh this time - he was far too calm, too focused to laugh. Moving carefully, so to not disturb his tenuous hiding spot, he brushed his thumb across his eyes. The seal was ready. Naruto let the chakra in his fingers go and the blood slowly receded back into his skin.

Naruto produced the folded piece of paper from his pocket and studied it one last time. He was fairly proud of this little invention. Hon had praised him when he finished it. It was an "ingenious" little seal, similar to one the librarian had made years ago. Now he was finally going to be able to show off his handy work in practice.

"Naruto," Sakura's voice buzzed over the short range radio bud in his ear, "The target is in your vicinity. You weren't joking when you said you had a foolproof way of capturing it, were you? Naruto? Naruto?"

Naruto didn't answer. But he tied the seal to a kunai and let it fly. "Seal of the Thief: One-Way Smoke Screen!" The tag went off with a satisfying 'boom' and covered the block in rancid white smoke. People were coughing and rubbing their eyes trying to get the chalky smokescreen out of their nose and eyes. Everybody was blinded, except: Naruto. He could see through the smoke as clear as day. That was the power of One-Way Smoke Screen. But why was everything green? Oh well.

Naruto jumped from his precarious hiding spot and wove his way through the crowd. Even when they couldn't see him, he had to be careful not to bump them.

"Got you!" Naruto leaped at the stunned cat. The smoke cut out two of the five of the creatures cat-senses, but apparently did nothing about its hearing. It easily avoided Naruto's grasping arms. Still, it didn't have anything along the lines of sight so it was completely unaware that there was a large solid object (namely a wall) along its chosen trajectory - bringing its dreams of flight to a premature termination. (Footnote 1)

"Target captured." Naruto spoke into the scratchy microphone. Bending down he tried to pick the infamous but unconscious cat up, and instantly regretted it. The hulking feline was known to be feisty, especially whenever someone tried to hold it (which of course meant that nobody would touch it, leaving Naruto to be scratched in the face every time it got loose), but Naruto had no idea just how heavy this thing was - albeit no comparison to the fire lord's wife (whom he lovingly called Madam Mountain) but it might still be "Cat of the Really Big Hill." Naruto groaned and fell backwards. The cat enacted its unconscious revenge by crushing his diaphragm.

"What was that?" The foul-smelling, white smoke was beginning to clear, now. The other people would be able to see him in a couple seconds. And you know, funny thing, but civilians usually didn't like being smoke screened. That - and the fact that there was a cart with a large pile of spoiled tomatoes nearby- told Naruto that now was the time to be going.

"I don't know. Some idiot must have bought a faulty smoke screen."

"Hey, Did anybody else hear, 'I got you' just a few seconds ago."

"Yeah. And then there was a loud thud. What about it?"

"It sounded kind of like the fox brat."

"Wait, the voice or the loud thud?"

"Both."

That was Naruto's cue to leave. Grabbing hold of the massive girth of the unconscious feline, Naruto struggled to get out of the cloud of chalky smoke. He was by-in-large tolerated by the general populous of Konoha now that his days were mostly filled with training, so maybe the folks would be kinder? Okay, not likely - Naruto admitted to himself - but still possible. He hadn't pranked anyone in a good three weeks, so maybe they just would have forgotten about him. Naruto hoped that was the case because with the ungainly mass of Tora - the Cat of the Really Big Hill - he was not going anywhere fast.

"Hey, I think I see him."

"Are you sure it's him?"

"Yeah, who else wears orange like that?"

"Your right!"

The voices were starting to close in on Naruto. Naruto tried waddling faster, to no avail. How was it that a unconscious cat weighed more than a live cat trying to kill him? What screwed up law of physics made that work? Naruto thought. The smoke was settling, leaving a fine white film over everything. On one hand it made everybody look like they had lived through a the "flower incident" (Footnote 2) and on the other hand it made Naruto look like some demonic mime. Blood covering his eyes, orange suit, and unconscious cat, Naruto probably was going to go down in the bingo books as Konoha's Demon Mime. Great, just great, he thought. There was no way anyone with the reputation of "Demonic Mime" could possibly be Hokage.

"Hey Brat! Stop!"

"Sorry, I've got a mission to complete." Naruto finally found a way to get a decent hold on his prisoner. Hooking his arms under the armpits he began the toddle away at high speeds, ignoring the irate civilians behind him.

"Come back here!" One of them called, but Naruto was already around the corner, safely out of range of possible spoiled projectiles.

As he neared the pre-designated meeting spot he slowed down. There was no hurry, he and Team Seven would just wind up waiting for Kakashi anyway. Knowing his luck, Sasuke would have forgotten to bring the kitty carrier (he refused to call it 'target transport container' no matter what Sakura called it) and he would have to sit holding the cat until it woke up and started scratching his face. Any time that he could spend not being there might be helpful.

As cute - and smart - as Sakura was, she was... not nice. Naruto wasn't sure how much he liked these "Team Work Wednesdays" when he worked with Team Seven. There didn't seem to be much team work involved, really. He, Sasuke, and Sakura would inevitably wind up chasing the darn cat all over town until they finally managed to accidentally grab it and take it back to Madam Mountain. Some days they actually worked out a plan - usually one with Naruto getting the crap job of the three. At first, Sakura's plans all involved having Sasuke swipe down at the last moment and snatch the cat after Naruto had it cornered. But after that emergency trip to the hospital... Naruto had been the scapegoat for the cat's feline wrath every time.

Sasuke- well Naruto's opinions were mixed about the Uchiha genius. Yes there were times where he could be a right-bastard. But mostly he didn't talk much. As much as Naruto hated to admit it, he was a really good ninja. Really good. Genius in fact. Bastard. Those first few times when Sasuke had been the one grabbing the cat, the missions hadn't taken much time at all. Yes he got scratched up too, but... He was better at this kind of stuff than Naruto. Naruto didn't like admitting it, and if the Uchiha learned that Naruto thought that way, he would never live it down. At least he didn't rub it in like Sakura.

This ninja stuff wasn't easy and Naruto wondered if he was improving at all. He couldn't tell. Hon-sensei praised Naruto more than any of his other teachers, so he felt like he was improving there. But the others, like Raido-sensei and Ebisu-sensei, only rarely praised him. He had no idea if he was getting anywhere. Chakra control was really, really hard. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. It was like rolling dice off a cliff. And all his teachers, aside from Hon-sensei and Cock-eye-sensei treated him strangely. At first they had been very cautious - maybe they were afraid of him - but that did not last very long. Mostly he was tolerated, given a task early in the morning and told to come back in the afternoon and have it mastered. A while back on his "personal training" day, he had tried to improve his taijutsu. Cock-eye-sensei pointed him in the direction of training ground 9. He had never been to training ground 9 and now never intended to go back there again. Gai-sensei was... different. He had no intention of ever going back there again, but... mini-Gai had been helpful - freaky, but helpful.

"OhmygawdwhatdidyoudoNarutowearegoingtobeinsomucht roubletheclientisgoingtofreakweredoomdoomdoomed!" Sakura's face turned about as pink as her hair when she saw Naruto caring the unconscious cat. Naruto stopped for a second, thinking hard he carefully mouthed out the words much more slowly.

'Oh my gawd what did you do Naruto? We are going to be in so much trouble, the client is going to freak. We're doomed, we're doomed, we're doomed!'

Naruto shrugged and set the cat down in the kitty carrier (Target Transport Container), locked the door, and ignored Sakura. When she got like this there were only two things to do: ignore her, and duck - not necessarily in that order. Plopping himself down next to the kitty carrier he resigned himself to waiting. Kakashi would be a while, it wasn't even three o'clock yet.

Naruto placed his hand on top of his stomach and wondered if there really was a demon fox sealed within. He didn't feel like there was, but how was he supposed to know what having a demon sealed inside of him didn't feel like. He had nothing to compare with! He certainly knew what it felt like having a demon in him. It wasn't that his stomach felt weird, but his heart sure did. Even his teachers looked at him differently. There was this jonin - the one teaching him about traps and poisons- she was nicer (but kind of creepy sometimes), but even Gai-sensei's expression had changed when he saw who wanted to train with his team. There was this stigma attached to him and he couldn't shake it off. Hon-sensei didn't care, Iruka didn't care, the ramen stand folks didn't care, so why did everybody else?

Naruto didn't like to think like this, it always made him depressed. Depressed was not a good state of mind for Naruto to be in. Usually whenever he started down this path of thought he tried to shift over to something more productive - like seal making or pranking. Therefore, even if they didn't know it, the general populous of Konoha didn't like Naruto in this state of mind either, because it usually wound up with some important object or meeting experiencing a streak of orange.

"Naruto are you even listening to me?" Naruto leaped into the air. The kitty carrier tipped over and clattered on the cement walk, awakening the cat inside. When Sakura was standing over him her hands on her hips in - what Shikamaru called - the Mother of Doom Pose. It was now time for ducking.

"Naruto, you knocked the cat out!" She yelled at him.

"I did not knock the cat out! It jumped into a wall!"

"What if it has brain damage?"

"It already has brain damage! Have you not seen the way that lady strangles it every time! I mean come on! It jumped into a wall for pete's sake! Of course it has brain damage."

"Don't insult the Fire Lord's wife! You're the one that has brain damage!"

"I do not have brain damage! And that has no relevancy to this conversation whatsoever!"

"It does too! It's the whole reason we're having this conversation!"

"Oh, just lay off it you two." Sasuke snapped from his perch above.

"Yes, Sasuke-kun." Sakura smiled sweetly, before she shot a piercing glance back at Naruto. "Naruto, you're going to be the one to tell the client we damaged her companion." She turned and walked away, robbing Naruto of his opportunity for retort. All he could do was stand, arms up, in a picture perfect 'what the heck' pose. There were days he really hated these 'team-work' sessions. Yes, never mind that they had actually managed to capture the dang cat before noon this time, and with no injury. No she had to focus on the fact that the cat just happened to be unconscious for a short period during the mission. Look, it was already back on its homicidal rage. No harm done.

And most importantly, none to his face either.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Uhh, Kakashi, why are we having this meeting now?" Kurenai scratched her eyebrow as she looked at man, "I mean isn't your team doing missions right now?"

"One word: Tora."

A general groan went up from the jonin. During their formative years, it hadn't been Tora, but the Fire Lord's wife had had another cat who, just like its current incarnation, was a devious pain in the butt. It was widely believed that a villain so vile, so despised, so evil that his name was forever removed from the history books, tempted the Fates to do their worst - the result being an eternity as the pet of the Fire Lord's wife, a hell of the highest order. They actually felt sorry for each successive generation of genin as the line of cats seemed to get smarter and smarter. (Footnote 3)

"So, Kakashi. Now that you have managed to gather some of the most famous ninja in the village together, what do you want us to do?" The Hokage didn't look up from his moveable mountain of paperwork as he spoke.

"Well I figured we could break out the booze and-" A large paperweight found its way into the side of Kakashi's face. It ricocheted back with professorial precision and landed once again on top of the unstable pile of papers. "Fine, you asked. Anyway with Naruto Uzumaki's 'special training regimen,' I need to have a meeting with you all every six months to assess his progress. Maybe even okay him for out of town missions, gawd this place is getting boring."

"Do you really believe him to be ready? His chakra control is far below average - even for genin." Ebisu pushed his dark glassed closer up against his nose. "The boy can still hardly perform a clone technique, much less water-walk or even climb trees with his chakra. If you ask me he's most likely to blow himself up on his first real mission. For the safety of all involved I think he should hardly be allowed to leave the village."

"What?" Raido chuckled, "So he can take out a couple city blocks when he finally does blow?"

Ebisu nodded, "In that case, I suggest we finalize his status and ship him out on the longest out-of-village mission possible - somewhere far away from anything valuable with nobody important."

Kurenai rested her forehead in her hand and sighed. Really the only reason she had been asked here was because Naruto had started spending a lot of Saturday's with her team. She was supposed to report on his social and mental fitness, but right now she was more likely to give a report on the mental fitness of the teachers he had. It was a generally poor report.

"Oh, just let him buy explosive tags already. He's only a couple weeks away from making them himself from what I can tell. Why not give him full genin status, come on aside from buying explosive tags, large-style shuriken, swords, most low level poisons - which by the way he can make worse ones on his own right now - and going on out of town missions, what is holding him back really doing? Besides, he's pretty resourceful on his own, I really don't think I can teach him much more with the given limits." Anko violently pulled off a piece of dango off her third stick. "Not that I wouldn't mind teaching him how to make better poisons. Did you know he found _Syhyphis_ around training area 12? Who knew? That stuff is hard to find, and you can make a pretty good profit selling it too. Could you imagine-"

Sarutobi reached over the top of his scale model of the Mountain Country and chucked his paper weight at Anko. "Anko, I don't care what image is playing in your mind, I know it's illegal. Even if it is just dango - any amount of anything that large is illegal."

"Oh yeah? What about air?" She stuck her tongue out, only to have it be smashed back into her mouth by the smooth stone. Anko looked at the paper weight that was once again resting at the peak of the pile of papers. "How, does that even work, anyway?"

"I don't know actually, it was in the office after I got it back. I tried removing it, but it didn't work. Now I just use it for entertainment value. Anyway, your report Anko?"

"Oh, right. Well, uh, he's a good kid; great at poisons and traps."

"Ahh," Kakashi crooned, "You like him."

"Maybe a little bit. He's just fun to mess with." Anko shivered with a sadistic sense of glee. "Occasionally I miss during target practice, no thanks to your training Raido, Hayate."

Kurenai was reminded of Anko's definition of target practice. One could make the argument that it improved balance, reflexes, quick thinking, and threat identification. Most people however just called it "flee and dodge." Kurenai was pleased to see that Kakashi at least shivered in sympathy for his student.

"Kind of wish I knew where he got all the seals from." Anko continued, "He'll bring a couple really cool ones to demonstrate some really nasty traps. You know homework." Anko shrugged and picked up her third skewer of dango.

Ebisu looked over at her, "Doesn't he borrow them from Senju-san's library."

Raido nodded, "Yes, he will often bring an assortment of seals to me as well, not that I use them a great deal. But he does talk a lot about one 'Hon-san.' I really don't know who he is though."

Kakashi shrugged, "He owns a library on the west side of town. Senju Hon has taken Naruto on as an apprentice as I gather."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! There is a ninja library with seals like that... for free? Why don't I know about this?" The dango hung dangling off its skewer.

The paperweight hit Ebisu first, then ricochet and left a dent in Raido's forehead, bounced against Anko's scull, and - just to round out its world tour - crash landed in Kakashi's face. "As potentially game changing as Anko with a nearly limitless supply of battle seals is... can we get back to the task at hand?"

"How the heck do you do that!" Anko cried from the floor holding the side of her head.

The Hokage inspected the smooth black polished stone. "I think its a standing stone from the Village Hidden in the Vortex."

"And you're using a priceless relic from the Whirlpool Village to bash in the skulls of miscreant underlings? Don't you think that's a bit disrespectful to their memory?" Kurenai asked.

He shook his head and stared down into the small orange vortex etched into the stone's glossy surface. There was so much history, so much pain and potential stored up in the simple design... "Trust me, Kurenai. They would have wanted it that way. They would have wanted it that way."

Through the open window a passionate cry was heard proclaiming the vitality of youth. Sarutobi chucked the Standing Stone out the window and the cry was silenced. After several seconds, when one of the assistants came in with the reports for the meeting the stone rolled in with him and bounce up onto the top of the paper work again.

"Fascinating."

"Yes, now. Please, if we could get back on track? All I've learned so far is that Anko has a too much fun with Naruto and could very well be the cause of several of his more elaborate pranks."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto rubbed his eyes, trying to remove the night from them. Maybe he had stayed too long at the training ground. It was dark now and he was having a hard time remembering where he was. He was too tired to access the mental map he had of the village, but he was pretty sure that he was somewhere on the west side of town. That would make sense given he was practicing at training area 25. Some people liked to always use the same training grounds, Naruto was constantly moving around trying to avoid detection. When he had first got access to the training grounds, when the old man had signed him up for the Academy, people had started playing pranks on him. They usually weren't that bad, but sometimes somebody tried putting some exploding tags on the training dummies. Old-man-Hokage had gotten so mad! Naruto didn't know if the responsible party was still in the village, but for weeks after the birds stayed far away from the Hokage's office.

Naruto rotated through the empty training grounds. He hardly ever used the same one for two weeks in row. While it meant that he got to see a lot more of the city than most people, it also meant he got lost pretty often. Most people really only stayed in certain parts of the village, like Sakura-chan for instance. She mostly stayed around the south side of town, the central shopping districts, and the Ninja district next to the Hokage monument. Not that he stalked her or anything. Really! Naruto, however, got to visit the whole village, which of course meant that no place was safe from his wrath!

BWAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! Ha. Ha. Dang it, he was still lost.

He'd crawled over this town top to bottom during the day, why was he having so much trouble tonight? Naruto sighed and turned down another empty street. He shouldn't be lost like this! From training ground 25 it was supposed to be a straight shot home. When had he made a wrong turn? There was the cloth shop, the red house, the tall house next to the playground, and the Ichiraku's. Ichiraku's? That wasn't anywhere near where he thought he was! Was he dozing off while he was walking? He didn't think he had any talent for sleepwalking.

He stopped to think about this harder. His head getting more and more fuzzy as the tiredness tried to pull him into sleep. He needed to get home and into bed before he fell asleep here. He really shouldn't have stayed up this long. What time was it? It must be some time after one in the morning. It wasn't like he had to wake up early tomorrow, he could get up around nine and still make it to the meeting point before Kakashi. But he wanted to stop by Master Hon's library before they went for another mission. Naruto had been reading about a tracking seal and wanted to pick one up if they had to go after Tora again.

Naruto turned down another darker street. Maybe if he kept walking he could find something he recognized. The buildings here were far too tall to see the mountain. Something felt funny about that, but Naruto was tired and the buzzing in the back of his head made it harder and harder to think. His eyelids were drooping down like they were weighted with heavy iron bells. Maybe he could find a small corner to curl up in. He'd done it before. Maybe, just a little while longer...

"Naruto?" Hon-san's voice cut through the buzz in Naruto's head. "What are you doing... here?"

"I just finished training and was heading home. I - hehe - got a little lost." Hon glanced around the street. The buzz was going away in Naruto's head and slowly his bearings were coming back. Oh, there was the mountain.

"Well, yes. You certainly seem to be a little confounded. Naruto," He paused and looked around again, "For the night I would offer a room at the library."

"Really! That would be great!" Naruto yawned. He probably could get home, but a night with Hon would be about a million times better then a night in his lonely apartment. Hon smiled and put his hand on Naruto's back.

"Well, I suppose we should get going."

Hon's hand never left Naruto's back as they walked the several blocks back to the library. "Hon-san, why were you out this late?" Naruto asked, a little uncomfortable with the silence - Hon seemed distracted, he kept looking around like he was searching for something.

"Well Naruto, you know that I do a little bit of research for the Hokage right?" Naruto nodded. "Well I was just giving him a report on some of my findings."

"Cool! What are you researching?"

"I am running some experiments to test a theory on the origin of bloodline-limit inheritances."

"Oh! Like the bi - ba - biya - those people with the white eyes. Oh, what's it's name? Byakugan!"

Hon flashed a grin, "Exactly, Naruto. I have some qualms with the current interpretation of their auspicious heritage. A while ago I stumbled upon an interesting morsel that has since opened new possibilities - most importantly letting us possibly predict the emergences of new bloodline-limits before they become fully formed."

"So wait, aren't they supposed to just - like - pop up randomly? Like popcorn?"

"Most believe so, but if my hunch pans out, Konoha would be posed to see a boom in unique genetic jutsu in the coming generations."

"Wait? So you mean that I could have one? That would be so cool!" Hon glanced down at Naruto and his eyes flashed, like an idea had flashed across his mind. "Possible - not a completely formed bloodline-limit mind you - but perhaps an atypical genetic mutation that might in the future evolve into a bloodline-limit. Tomorrow morning we could perform some experiments, additionally it would be a prime opportunity to begin introducing some of the components of higher level seal making."

"Sweet." Naruto grinned before the sleep started taking hold again. Hon ushered him through the door and shut it. Quietly he pushed his hand into a small indention in the woods grain. There was a small hiss and he walked away.

"Naruto these are computation scrolls," Hon picked up with astounding ease one of the giant scrolls that were stored in the libraries back room. Naruto had never been allowed back here, probably for good reason. The scrolls were huge! And they had all these little tubes running from one to another. "Their simplified purpose is simply to answer simple questions that would take too long for a simple person simply to do."

"Like what, simply?"

"Oh, like determining if a incredibly large number was prime or not. They are useful for finding answers that require great amounts of math, but largely otherwise useless. That is until they are connected to smaller procedural scrolls - like the one you made last week that sharpens the tools stored within it. The result is a Methodical Set. And these Methodical Sets let researchers like me do something very complicated over and over again without having to attend to over step." Hon set the large scroll down and moved over to a set large Methodical Set with hundreds of wires connecting scores of scrolls. "Take, for example, this set. It would take this sample of blood you gave me," he set the small vial of crimson blood on the top of the largest scroll - the one right in the center of the set - and it disappeared in a flash of smoke, "and separate the blood cells from the plasma. Then it will take the blood cells and open them up and remove the nucleus and the genetic material that makes you, you. It will then 'read' your genes and finally produce a scroll that we can analyze to determine if you have any interesting genetic mutations."

Hon turned around to face Naruto and smile. He said, "It takes a rather long time to do that however. And if we have no idea where to start looking for such a mutation, we could die before we find one. So there are other ways to begin looking for clues. The first and easiest would be to start investigating any peculiar chakras. And why is that Naruto?"

"Umm, because... ah" Naruto wracked his brain for answers. The history book had lots of names of bloodline-limes, most of them were nowhere near as cool as the sharingan or the byakugan. In fact most of them just seemed like weird justus... That was it! "Because most bloodline-limits are strange forms of chakra?"

"Yes and no. The vast majority of bloodline inheritance limits are unique dual chakra affinities. Like wood release is a mixture of earth and water, or ice release is a mixture of wind and water chakra's." Hon lead Naruto back into the main reading room of the library. Where there were several blank sheets of paper laid out on one of the tables. Hon covered his hand with his sleeve as he picked up the smallest sheet of paper. "The first thing to do would be to discover what your affinities are. Naruto, do you know what this is?"

Naruto shook his head. Hon extended his hand and Naruto took it. The paper seemed to shudder when it touched his skin and it split in half, like it had been cut. "What? I didn't do anything!" Naruto looked up to his master, he was smiling.

"It's fine Naruto. In fact, that is supposed to happen. That paper is what we call Weighing Paper. It will weigh your chakra and react according to your strongest affinity. It turns to ash if you aspire to fire, and with crumble to dust if your affinity is earth, it will grow damp if you flow with a water typed chakra, it will wrinkle when exposed to lightning tinged chakra, and finally split in two if you tend toward the wind nature."

"So I'm a wind ninja?"

"Exactly, and that is rare enough in the Fire country - due to our heritage, most people have a fire affinity, wind is actually one of the rarest. Partly due to a civil war before the Unified Nation of Fire formed. Those with a fire affinity had an advantage on the wind natured and in the war nearly wiped them out. But while this is a good place to start training, why would it be a poor place to begin looking for new bloodline-limits, Naruto?"

Naruto shook his head. He didn't have a clue. If they were looking for strange chakra's finding someone's affinity sounded like a great place to start. "Come on Naruto, use your mind."

Naruto still didn't know.

"Are there any flaws to this method."

"Well, you're trusting a piece of paper to know everything about you. That doesn't seem to smart." Naruto shrugged.

"Ah, but Naruto, how much does the paper really know about you?"

"Okay, not everything. But it knows your strongest chakra affinity." Hon smiled, that meant Naruto had said something right. The answer he was looking for was very near. It only knew your chakra affinity - wait, it knew your strongest affinity. Only your STRONGEST affinity! "It can only react with your strongest affinity, if you have more than one - one might be slightly stronger than the other so it would only react to that one! You could have others and not even know about them if you only use this!" Naruto grinned like Hon was grinning.

"Exactly Naruto. Now how would you go about fixing that?"

"I would find something that could show me all my about my chakra!"

Hon nodded, "But why not something that just measured your affinity for other natures."

"Because there could be other things that make my chakra special? Like what if I had a whole new element? No one would ever be able to measure that! If I could see my chakra I could learn all sorts of other things. I guess I could ask one of the, the, the - oh the people with white eyes - Hyuuga! They could see my chakra. But-"

"But?"

"They probably wouldn't do it for me. I mean none of them are nice - well none of them except Hinata. Plus they wouldn't know what I was looking for. AND if I had another idea I'd have to ask them all over again. And if my chakra changes over time, how are they supposed to know? I want to see it for myself!" Naruto suddenly realized he was babbling and clapped a hand over his mouth. He had sounded just like Sakura-chan, that was scary. He wasn't brown-nosing Hon was he?

"Exactly Naruto, spoken like my apprentice should speak. But sometimes you can trust the judgment of others too - one can't know everything. However, the problem you mentioned has been noted by other researchers like myself. We know from the doujutsu users that each person has a unique chakra signature, kind of like a fingerprint. Trained dogs can even smell that signature - there is no doubt of its existence, yet we can't see it with our eyes. The absolute best thing would be to acquire a doujutsu and begin recording everyone's signature for comparison. Unfortunately, it is a little difficult to convince the illustrious clans to share their unique genetic mutations. However, someone managed to open the first gateway for we explorers." Hon picked up one of the other papers on the table. On one side it was the pale yellow of parchment, the other was completely black, like it had been covered with ink.

"What's that?"

"First and foremost, significantly more expensive than simple Weighing Paper." Hon chuckled at his own joke. "The more constructive answer is that this is our answer to 'seeing' chakra signatures."

Naruto nodded slowly. And waited for Hon to continue. Hon said nothing, waiting for Naruto to continue. "Ok, how?"

"Excellent question." Hon smile widened. Naruto felt something warm cover his heart, he had done something right, though he didn't know what. "But I think the actual processes would distract from the purpose of this morning; namely self discovery." Hon set the paper down and explained: "Naruto if you would put your hand here. And release just a little chakra, a representation of your chakra signature will be impressed onto the scroll beneath the paper. You ready?"

Naruto nodded enthusiastically. "Here we go!" The loose papers on the table ruffled and several pages of the open books flipped themselves when Naruto release his 'small' amount of chakra.

Hon's eyebrow raised up in a curious arch as he peeled the signature paper. The scroll underneath (with a label that Naruto couldn't see that read Subject 9) now contained an intricate image, and several scorch marks that had burned through the paper. The back - formerly black - half of the signature paper looked like it was covered in ash.

"Interesting." Naruto turned away from the fascinatingly complex image to see what Hon was talking about. Suddenly he looked down at his feet, his excitement completely gone. "Naruto, you haven't done anything wrong. Let's look at what your chakra signature is." Hon smiled kindly at the boy, his enthusiasm coming back. The librarian set the scorched signature paper off to one side and together they leaned over the paper.

"Naruto, you see those scores in the paper? They must come from small bits of the demon fox's chakra that has slipped into your chakra stream." Naruto went stiff - he still didn't like talking about the fox at all. Hon had explained a little about the law forbidding its mention when Naruto had asked about it. It was a weird thought that something that powerful was in his stomach. "But ignoring those, what do you see Naruto?"

"Ahhhh, my face when after that damn-cat gets to it." Hon actually laughed at that! Not one of his quiet chuckles but a real laugh. It sounded kind of like a single bark before Hon's fingers covered his lips. "Well, yes, I suppose it does." There was still some laughter left in his voice as he spoke. "Does it resemble any shapes? Can you see a picture in it perhaps?"

Naruto stared intently at the spinning lines impressed onto the scroll. They kind of made him dizzy. Vaguely Naruto remembered some of those strange pictures that if you unfocused your eyes it was like you were looking at something that looked like you could touch it. But no, this wasn't one of those pictures. Or maybe it was like one of those 'test the psychology' books mentioned. But it didn't even really look like one of those either. Naruto tilted his head and crossed his eyes - no still no picture. If it looked like anything it looked like; "A whirlpool with a big black dot in the middle?"

Hon shrugged, "It does look like a vortex viewed from above." Hon started picking up the papers and scrolls scattered across the table.

"Hey, but what does this mean?" Naruto sputtered. Hon shook his head.

"Later, young apprentice. However, now you have lessons to attend, do you not? You don't want to be late."

Naruto shrugged. If it were up to him he would skip his eight hours with Cock-eye-sensei. This was nearly a bajillion times more interesting. But Hon ushered him out of the door onto the street. "See ya' this afternoon, Hon-sensei!" Naruto shouted and waved as he ran off. Even though he had graduated the academy what-seemed-like-an-eternity ago, Naruto still felt a thrill of excitement when he reminded himself that he was training to be a ninja! There was nothing that could dampen that.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Okay, Sakura, Sasuke. You guys can take off!" Kakashi called to the genin practicing on opposite sides of the training ground. Team Seven had been practicing sending signals using small mirrors. Amazingly enough, all three of them had picked it up rather quickly. From what he could tell they were currently trying to figure out what the best flavor of candy was. Sakura was advocating for milk chocolate, plain and simple. Sasuke argued for Pocky. And Naruto... well at first Naruto had tried to convince them that a bar of ramen flavored chocolate would be worth mountains of gold, now he had started divulging the entire recorded history of chocolate. Apparently it was some kind of argument to prove that never in the history of chocolate had anyone even attempted to make ramen chocolate (probably for good reason). Kakashi thought that while the point of the argument was disgusting, the information contained therein was very interesting. Apparently the second shinobi war had actually been caused, at least in part, by a delayed shipment of chocolate to Suna, a spoiled brat's birthday party, and the invention of chocolate-chip cookies. Naruto admitted that there were other causes too, but he made a good argument for the warmongering powers of chocolate deprived six year olds.

On the whole he was considering making all conversations take place through semaphore. It was amazing how civil - and conversational - the team was when they didn't actually have to talk to each other. It was peaceful in the silence. However, peace never lasted - not in Kakashi's experience at least.

"Really sensei?" Sasuke asked emerging from his bush, "Isn't it like about an hour too early?"

"Yeah, but you guys did good work today, plus I still have to give Naruto his daily lesson. You know, case managing and stuff. Enjoy your free time, or would you like me to find another mission for the two of you?"

"No Sensei!" Sakura cut in as Sasuke opened his mouth, "We'd be happy to take the time off for rest." The pink haired girl turned to her crush. "So, Sasuke, what are you going to do?"

He shrugged, "I'd don't know, get something to eat maybe, then I have to go shopping."

"Like clothes?" Sakura lit up like exploding tag. Kakashi pitied Sasuke. (Footnote 4)

"No. Laundry detergent, food, ink, you know the important things?" Sasuke ticked off his shopping list on his fingers. Each time deflating Sakura's vision of getting Sasuke to dress up a little bit more. Kakashi could almost see the dreamed outfits crumbling like dust out of Sakura's mind. "Oh." Sakura sighed. "Okay, so what are you going to get to eat?"

Sasuke was interested in girls, not dumb. "I was thinking Dango. Do you want to come?" Sakura ignored the reluctant tone and squealed: "I would love to come, I know this great place for Dango!"

Naruto - who had a little trouble getting out of his tree - said, "If you're going where I think you're going, say hi to the creepy lady in the trench coat for me."

"Why?" Sakura looked at the blond skeptically, "Is she part of some plot?"

"What? No!" Naruto cried. "I mean, she might attack you if you try to steal her dango, but otherwise she's harmless. Okay, well not really harmless, and if she thinks it would be funny watching you hang over a pit of snakes than yeah, she'll find the rope. But she has to be mildly annoyed at you already...Anyway, Anko-sensei just really likes dango."

"Wait, Anko... the creepy snake lady?" Sasuke asked. "How do you know her?"

Naruto shrugged, "She teaches me all these cool things about traps and tools, and helps me plan pranks... but not very often Kakashi-sensei! She's pretty awesome. Anyway, how do you know her, Sasuke?"

"Meh, She lives in the same apartment as I do." Suddenly Sasuke shivered violently. Naruto nodded. Sasuke raised his eyebrow. Naruto's own brow cringed and shook his head. Sasuke nodded, and grimaced. Naruto nodded. Together they shivered again and then it was over.

Sakura looked baffled, "What? Who- Arrg! It's like you're doing girl-talk! Stop that! It is just flat out creepy!"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, now he was confused. He completely understood Sasuke's reaction to Anko - it was the universal response to any memory associated with Konoha's Snake Mistress. Girl talk on the other hand was something that he had not heard of before.

"You know," Sakura explained. "When girls talk to each other only using their faces and stuff. Guys aren't supposed to be able to understand it! That way we can talk about things without them knowing! Eeep!"

Kakashi blinked when Sakura suddenly cut herself off and slapped her hands over her mouth. Sasuke shrugged, but Naruto grinned. Naruto grinned evilly. Naruto grinned in a manner that no twelve year old should be capable of grinning. It said 'I know something, and you are going to bend over backwards to keep me from spilling it - lest you be killed by your own kind' (Footnote 5)

"You just broke the Girl Code, didn't you?"

There was obvious conflict inside Kakashi's student as she tried to come up with an answer. Unfortunately by not answering she gave Naruto the answer she was looking to avoid. "How do you know about the girl code?" She finally spat.

"You know the great thing about law codes? Usually they get written down." Kakashi's mind filled in the gaps: and things that get written down get passed down, and knowledge tends to congregate, and the second greatest store of knowledge in the town was... the library Naruto visited on a daily basis. Naruto had read the key, the key to understanding women! "Naruto, you have to-"

"Secret Kunoichi Art: Amnesia Fist!" A blast of strange chakra erupted from Sakura as she hurled a glowing pink fist at Naruto's head. The attack sent him flying across the training field into a tree. There was a terrifying "chunk" as Naruto's impenetrable skull hit the tree. "You cannot know." Sakura whispered - the fury of every Kunoichi pushing through her voice. Kakashi had a feeling that there was more going on here - but he was certain that investigation would only lead to a quick painful end.

"Sakura, please don't damage him too much, I still need to train him today." He started over to his unconscious pupil. "Have fun on your date you two."

"HRRgrrghghhrhgh." Sasuke grumbled in pain. Kakashi didn't turn around, but in his mind's eye he saw Sakura crushing every bone in Sasuke's body. There was a small part of Kakashi - the same part that enjoyed children - got a warm fuzzy feeling as he envisioned that. Kakashi's inner sadist had issues, he knew that, but he had to feed it every once in awhile - after all it was family.

"Hey, Naruto. How do you feel?" Kakashi tried to shake the blond away.

"Uann. Did anybody get the number of that mountain?" Naruto groaned as he woke up from his stupor.

"Do you remember it?" Kakashi asked. He had to remember it, it could possibly the most important piece of information discovered in the past century. "Remember what?"

"Nooooooooo!" Some small part of Kakashi screamed. The rest of the scarecrow managed to keep his face level. "Nothing Naruto." He shook head and heard his broken dreams rattling around his skull. It was gone, all gone, gone forever. The secret to understanding women, gone. "Don't worry about it. How's your head?"

"I'm getting better."

_Oh no you're not_, the part of Kakashi that had learned revenge wanted to say. _That would take too much work, _said the much larger lazy section of Kakashi's brain. _Is it a problem that my brain is being divided up against itself,_ the sane part of him asked. _Would you guys shut up and let me read my porn_, a final voice screamed. After that there was silence.

"Good. How many clones do you think you can make?" As much as Naruto wanted to spam every situation with shadow clones, and as much as Kakashi loved the simple elegance of the solution... he had banned the use of that particular technique. Not because of its massive drain on Naruto's chakra (that was kind of a worthless reason. Kakashi had called in a favor with one of his old Hyuuga ANBU buddies. His words had been something to the effect of 'If Naruto could instantaneously convert all of his internal energy into light and sound... the fire country would only be a smoking crater and a memory). Naruto's shadow clone had been banned because of Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho. Naruto was NEVER allowed to create shadow clones without the permission of a jonin rank or higher- by decree of the third Hokage.

"Cock-eye-sensei, how high can you count?"

"Oh, right, silly question. Can you just make a normal clone?"

"Why?"

"I have an idea." Kakashi sighed, "We'll go with plan B. Bring them all out."

Naruto nodded. "Tell me when you're ready." Kakashi had devised a way for Naruto to actually practice with his clones - without all the insanity that accompanied Naruto's special clones. The great thing was that it also doubled as a great stress reliever. Why did he have so much fun destroying clones of his student? Why was the sky blue? _Never ask Naruto those questions_, the sane part of Kakashi pointed out, _he'd probably answer them_. "Go!"

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Four identical puffs of smoke erupted around Naruto. Kakashi waited for the thin veils to clear. He could immediately tell which one was the normal clone. For whatever reason (something to do with Naruto being an idiot) the first three clones of any batch of clones were always Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho. Where most clones were fragile copies of their creator, Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho, were more like fractures of Naruto's personality projected and given form. In their case the sum of the parts happened to be more annoying than the whole. For whatever reasons Naruto's screwed up head had managed to give these three clones personalities and memories that continued over multiple creations.

At first they hadn't been all that different from Naruto's other clones, they were just a bit more... vocal. As Naruto continued to use them however...

"Damn it, Naruto! That hurt!" There was Psycho. It had popped into existence behind Naruto - the perfect position to deliver a kick sending the original high into the sky.

"Nice hang time." Kakashi couldn't help commenting.

"Thank you." Psycho nodded.

"Wait for it, wait for it... thud!" Crazy - obviously - cheered in time to Naruto's reacquaintance with the earth. The effect was slightly dulled by the fact that Naruto had actually managed to land on his feet. He had had the practice.

"Naruto!" Shouted Psycho.

"What?"

"DOOOOOOOOOOOODGE!" Psycho screamed as it unleashed a fury of kunai upon the hardly innocent original.

"What... Osssshhhhh..." Naruto tried to scramble out of the way of the oncoming rain of death. But was tackled to the ground by Crazy who vehemently declared that he could "help". The cloud of sharp pointy clone knives embedded themselves in the not so sharp but very pointed clone - dissipating both. Lingering in the air after its "death" the clone left the question: "Why didn't you dodge?"

"Deadpan, give me your kunai. I'm all out."

The laziest of the clones glanced up and the evil clone. "Uhhhh, how about... no?"

"Deadpan, give them to me or I swear I will beat them out of you."

"Yeah sure, dissipate me and all your sharp pointy implements of death disappear as well." It snapped back at its fellow clone.

"Why you-" Puff. Psycho never got to finish that thread as Kakashi dispelled it as well. Leaving just the normal clone - who had gotten out of the way as soon as Psycho started living up to its name - and Deadpan. Kakashi looked over at the lazy clone seated on the ground where it had puffed into existence. "Are you going to be a problem today?" He asked.

"That depends," it shrugged, "do you place 'sarcasm' under the classification of 'problematic'? Because if you do, than amicable relations are nigh impossible."

"No."

"Than we'll get along just fine."

"Okay than. Hey, you, normal clone!" The standard shadow clone popped his head up out of the bush that he'd been hiding in. "What? Are they gone yet?"

"Nope, I'm still here." Deadpan waved.

"The answer is forty-two." Kakashi told clone.

"What? The answer to what is-" Puff. A kunai punctured the clones face, ending its short and traumatizing existence. (And simultaneously making a small part of Kakashi glow inside.) Kakashi walked over to where Naruto was cowering. Kakashi couldn't help but notice that Naruto's primary mode of transport underwent a massive shift whenever his clones came out. Usually the boy would move about by walking or running or large chakra enhanced leaps. Under normal circumstances the boy hardly ever stayed still for too long (unless he had a book or scroll in front of him). But whenever he produced his clones - particularly Psycho - his movement style became something more like: short violent bursts of wild sporadic movement punctuated by long periods of painful stillness. His usually pedal based locomotion became based on gluteal-pedal interactions... and became infinitely more entertaining.

"Naruto, what is the answer?" Kakashi knelt next to the prone probationary-genin.

"The answer to what?" Naruto pushed himself off the ground and turned to look at Kakashi. The Jonin saw the boy's eyes flick over to where the lazy sarcastic faction of his subconscious sat. "Did Deadpan put you up to this?"

"Do you really think I'd listen to him?"

"Hmm, good point."

"So what's that answer? I just told your clone..."

"Oh, ahhh 42?" Naruto grinned, "Does this mean I get to abuse my clones for training purposes."

"I'm thinking about it." Kakashi looked down at the blond haired boy.

"Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Then we can start having incidents on a weekly basis." Suddenly Deadpan was standing next to Kakashi. It was kind of disturbing how the sarcastic clone could move - apparently it had inherited all of Naruto's stealth abilities. Kakashi had a hard enough time tracking the original Naruto with all of its klutziness. When Deadpan didn't want to be found, as the pure form of stealth, it was literally impossible to find him. Sometimes Kakashi wondered if it wasn't more than his imagination that made Deadpan's colors seem a little more subdued than the others. Deadpan continued: "We could have the cream pie incident, and the flower incident, and the ramen incident - actually probably several of those, and the snake incident, and the blond incident... I could go on if you'd like."

Kakashi nodded as the full prospect of what Deadpan was saying sunk in. "Deadpan makes a good point."

"Oh, come on. You're supposed to be on my side." Naruto shouted at his clone.

"I can't help it if I'm lazy." Deadpan shrugged and turned away. Naruto screamed in frustration and punched Deadpan in the back of the head. The clone disappeared in a puff of smoke. Kakashi sighed - if he tried going with his plan now he'd have to dispel all Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho all over again. Kakashi shook his head, realizing that his job had just gotten a lot harder. He had kind of planned on giving Naruto something complicated to learn and shoving him in a forgotten field to practice with his shadow clones. That way he would look good having two genin with high level skills AND (more importantly) he wouldn't have to do a lot of work. It had been a genius plan, he just had to be around to kill the Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho. But Deadpan was right, that would certainly have been some sort of hell. No doubt one day he would miss one of them and then he really would have hell to pay.

"Besides I told him the answer anyway."

"Okay, since my first idea for today isn't going to work... I suppose I could just give you your exam."

"Exam? What are you doing to me? Where are you sending men?"

"You're not going anywhere, Naruto - except maybe insane. Your probation requires me to file reports on you every once in awhile. That way, when your time is up, we can place you accurately."

"And you forgot to do that two weeks ago, didn't you?"

"No." Kakashi's eye roamed around the training field, not looking at Naruto.

Kakashi continued, "I have to test you to see what you have learned from your special tutors. That way, the evil accounting department can get off my back." Turning a hapless blonde into a deadly weapon took a lot of money and the Hokage's accountants were getting violent over the line item. Fiscal responsibility was a pain, but apparently it had to be held in order to keep the village running smoothly. (Footnote 6) What it added up to was a team of sadistic math nerds with access to large sums of money, inflated egos, and high grade weapons, i.e. Kakashi's fifty-third worst nightmare. (Footnote 7)

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Naruto. Are you alright?" Kakashi looked down at the boy holding his head. Naruto was being suspiciously quiet. Kakashi had received a hawk from Senju Hon late in the afternoon asking him to escort Naruto to his library after his training had been completed. He couldn't fathom why, but Senju Hon was older than even the Hokage, meaning he had supernatural powers... that and if Naruto could cause as much damage as he did with only a fraction of the library at his disposal than the librarian could certainly cause a great deal more havoc in Kakashi's life. Or that was the way the librarian had explained it in his letter. Maybe it had something to do with Naruto being so quiet.

"Oh yeah." Naruto tried to brush it off. "It's just a headache. You ever get those ones where there's this buzzing in the back of your head that you just can't get rid of? It will be fine."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. This was definitely not normal Naruto. He wasn't rolling on the floor in pain, or being unbearably loud, or doing anything stupid. Kakashi was lazy, not stupid. If Hon was asking him to escort Naruto back personally that meant something was up. And this headache... The paranoid part of Kakashi's brain, the part that had the most weight of any of his subconsciousness because it had saved his skin so many times was sending up alarm bells left and right. Naruto. Headache. Buzzing. Escort. Keep him in sight at all times. Kyuubi. Weapon. Accountants. Hokage. Pain. Insanity. Military Might... Ramen. Thoughts buzzed around behind Kakashi's eyes like bees, almost none of them pleasant. Except ramen, because it was impossible to think Naruto and not think ramen somewhere in the mental process.

"All right I take that back. This headache SUCKS! Why oh why won't something heavy fall out of the sky and crush me, just to end my misery!" Naruto cried, returning to his normal personality and alleviating some of Kakashi's ungrounded fears... and stirring up a whole new batch. The pair stopped, looked up at the sky, and waited. They waited. Kakashi didn't know what he was waiting for but he had a feeling that if he stopped waiting for it, it would come and he would be sorry.

"Hey, Cock-eye-sensei. You ever get the feeling you jinxed something and you're just waiting for karma to come back and bite you in the butt?"

"Yeeeaaaahhhhh." Kakashi nodded, still inspecting the sky carefully.

"You think I did that now?"

"Yeah." Kakashi nodded. He couldn't see anything in the sky, but unless he used his sharingan he wouldn't be sure, and really not even then. There was this apprehension in the air that seemed to foretell death and insanity. It was the same kind of presence that permeated every fiber of his being whenever he saw Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho. That undeniable sense that everything in the world was on the edge of losing all order and one wrong word could push the world into chaos. The feeling that it might not happen this time, or next time, or even in a hundred times, but that it would happen. It would happen.

"Cock-eye-sensei, can we get out of here before something really does fall from the sky and put me out of my misery."

Kakashi nodded and they started walking briskly toward the Library of Senju Hon.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Ah, Kakashi!" Hon looked up from the scroll he was examining. "You have my sincerest gratitude for watching over my apprentice. The gesture will be returned in kind." Hon nodded.

Naruto had the feeling that there was some deeper layer to the conversation, but it was probably above his pay scale. Heck, with his paltry earnings from missions almost everything was above his pay scale. Than again, he knew lots of things that were above his pay scale, he knew the secret to Ichiraku's ramen broth, he knew the trade balance between all the elemental nations for the past two hundred years, he knew how to find the scroll of forbidden jutsus, he knew more about the sharingan than anybody outside of Hon or the Uchiha clan (He had spent a great deal of time researching the clan while he was in the academy trying to find some way to kick Sasuke's butt. It hadn't turned out all that well, but it had been pretty dang interesting), and he knew the password to the third hokage's hidden stash of porn, (which was actually better guarded than the seal of forbidden jutsu.). So it was only a matter of time until - oh shiny!

Okay, it wasn't really shiny, but it was sufficiently distracting enough to derail his previous train of thought. Sitting at the same reading table as Hon was a head of blue hair and white eyes. "Hey, Hinata!" Hinata jumped. Naruto couldn't help chuckling, it might have been something that he picked up from Hon. He at least thought it was a congenial gentle laugh, not at her, but at his own reaction. She... didn't see it that way. A faint blush curled up her neck and into her face. "Are you okay?" Naruto asked worried.

"Umm, I'm just fine." Hinata stared down at the paper in front of her, but her eyes weren't moving. Suddenly her eyes flicked up to meet Naruto's and then back down at the paper.

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Hinata said, just a little bit too loudly to be convincing. Naruto wondered if maybe Hinata was sickly. She always seemed pale or flushed when he saw her, and she never really talked. Maybe she was anemic. Or was that just a myth. One time, when he was learning the Bloody Tips Jutsu he had messed up, Hon had said that he should have died for the amount of blood he lost - but he felt just fine. He was pretty sure that anemia was a myth but... there seemed to be enough evidence of it outside of his own experience, so it was possible.

"Naruto, Hinata was helping me out with my research on bloodline inheritance limits. Actually we had just finished taking her chakra signature. If you like, we could look at yours too?" Kakashi left and Hon walked over to the shelf just behind the large library scroll - the one that he kept books and scrolls he was working with - and removed several scrolls. "Uhhh." Hinata stood up and looked toward the door, then at Naruto, then at Hon, and finally back to the door. "I think I should be going. My father said not to bother you Hon-sama."

"Nonsense, Hinata-chan, burdensome you are not. If you would like to stay, you might tell your father that I extended an invitation that you believed would have been rude to turn down. However, if you wish to depart, I will not prevent you from doing so." Hinata's mouth opened for a second, and then closed. Like she had thought better of something and she sat back down.

"Naruto, you don't mind if Hinata joins us do you?"

"Mnnn." Naruto shook his head. "It will be fun, right Hinata?" Hinata's face became even more flushed after he said that. Naruto shrugged and sat down as Hon started laying out the scrolls and books he brought over on the table.

"Now Naruto, do you remember what I compared Chakra signatures to this morning?"

"Yeah..." Naruto remembered something like that, but not exactly what the librarian had compared them too. "You said they were like... ahhh... fingerprints?"

"Correct Naruto. And why did I say Chakra signatures were like fingerprints?" Hon unfilled the scroll that had Naruto's chakra signature. Somehow the holes he had burned in the paper this morning had been repaired. "Because we all have unique signatures?" Naruto looked down at his fingers. He supposed at some level he knew he had a completely unique fingerprint, but he hadn't really be aware of the fact that no one else in the world had exactly the same fingerprint as him. It was completely unique. His and his alone. For some reason it made him feel good. Across the table Hinata was looking at her fingertips too.

"Correct again, Naruto. However I confess it isn't a perfect analogy. Unlike our fingerprints - whose design is the same at birth as it is at our death - our chakra signatures are significantly more volatile. Right Hinata-chan?"

Hinata jumped again, the way she always did whenever a teacher asked her a question. "Uhh... yes sensei."

"Our chakra signatures are least stable when we are very young and during the teenage years of our life."

Hinata's eyes opened a little wider, "Is that why Hanabi's chakra looks different now then when she was littler?"

Hon smiled and nodded, "An excellent example Hinata. Certainly as we grow and develop little parts of our signature change. However, there are parts that never change throughout our lifetime. These can tell us who the signature belongs to, where they are from, who their parents were, and even a little bit about their ancestry. Take, for example, this double banded ring that is in your signature, Hinata. Bloodline limit inheritances tend to create distinctive structures within chakra signatures - the Byakugan identifies itself with this structure. However that doesn't mean that there aren't individual variations even within these structures. Inductively, we reason that the stronger Byakugan's produce rings whose individual bands are farther apart. "

Naruto noticed that Hinata curled up tighter after Hon said that. The bands of her signature were so close they were practically touching. "Hinata, you're Byakugan may not be very strong, but that does not necessarily mean it will remain so. As I said, chakra signatures are not frozen facets of our being. While a chakra signature may reflect the strength of a person, only history can measure the strength of our character. We historians find that it is usually the character that grows strong before the body." Hinata uncurled a little and looked back down at her chakra signature.

"But there is so much more that we can learn from these reflections than just our strength." Hon pointed to a series of pips following the ring of the Byakugan with one hand and a line in one of the books with the other. "Like these. These are proof that the Hyuuga clan has lived in the fire country for centuries. Historically these were signs that one might have had an affinity for fire chakra - now however we know this pattern as being indicative of fire country ancestry. It may have been a proto bloodline limit once many millennia ago - one that never developed to fruition. Whatever the case, people must have prospered and stretched out all over the land that we call the fire country now. We don't remember who they were, or what they did, but their legacy remains here in each one of us. But it is not just fire country natives that have markers. See?" Hon pointed over to Naruto's signature to a row of pips hidden in his own mess of lines. Naruto could see the fire country flag but as the line of pips curled in toward the center of the image the pattern changed. "This short series here, is indicative of an ancestry heralding from the eastern desert of the wind country, and the shape also indicates that you have roots in the land now called the Land of Waves - once called the Land of Whirlpools.

"We can tell from these two pieces that some of your ancestors, likely from your mothers side, Naruto, heralded from an ancestral line from the Land of Waves, and your father would have been an heir of the fire country and the wind country - perhaps explaining your affinity for wind chakra. The shape of our chakra usually comes from our mother's ancestry and the pips usually derive from our fathers. I'm sure if I had a copy of your mother's signature, Hinata, you would find that upon the first glance, yours would seem very similar to hers. But further analysis would show you have a great deal in common with your father.

"However while those facts may be interesting to historians, we are ninja's, so perhaps something else would be more appropriate for investigation."

"Yeah!" Naruto almost jumped out of his chair. "I want to know if I have a super cool bloodline limit. Like one that will let me shoot beams of fire out of my eyes, or freeze stuff. No! Freeze stuff with one eye and burn stuff with another." Naruto cackled at the idea. Hinata smiled along with the boy's laughs.

"Unlikely, Naruto, given that your primary affinity is with wind. When we look for chakra natures we look at the shape of the strokes that don't have any flags attached to them. See how many lines you have, and how short they are - these are the sign of a wind affinity. Water affinities have smooth curling curves, earth natures are represented with straight heavy lines, lines of lighting natured chakras are sharp and jagged like they were drawn with furious attacking strokes, and chakra with a fiery tendency splays out in random directions perpetually dividing and growing thinner. By analyzing the shapes of the strokes we can tell your secondary affinities.

"Hinata, what would you hypothesize, Naruto's secondary chakra natures might be." Hon pushed Naruto's chakra signature toward the center of the table and they all leaned over.

Hinata stared down at the strange whirlpool of dashed lines, but her eyes would occasionally leap up to look at Naruto's face. Naruto didn't see it however, he was far too engrossed with the chakra signature. "Ano... maybe... uh... I don't know."

Hon smiled and shook his head, "That is a perfectly acceptable answer. Here." He opened up a book and pushed it towards her. "This will be helpful."

Hinata bobbed her head vigorously. And commenced her analysis of Naruto's chakra. It was several minutes before she spoke again. Several times she started to speak, but stopped herself. "Maybe... uh... w-water? Or lightning? Sorry!"

"Don't apologize, Hinata. They are fair analyses. What observations did you make that lead you to that conclusion?"

"Umm well. It well..." Hinata sputtered. Calming herself down with a deep breath she put her finger on one of the lines. She traced it around the signature like she was connecting-the-dots. Sometimes in came in close to the black pit in the center, sometimes the line pushed out near the edge. "The books says that wind chakra doesn't have much order - but I can trace a line through Naruto-kun's signature. I imagine it like several lines diverging and meeting over and over again. Like it is flowing around like a river."

"Good." Hon nodded. "And lighting?"

Hinata pulled herself up a little on the table and reached across to point to something near the center orb of the signature. "Here the strokes look kind of like the ones in the book for lighting. The way they are all sharp and square."

"Excellent summation, Hinata, your prowess in observation is noted. Naruto, I've seen you glancing at Hinata's signature. Have you managed to discover her natural affinities?"

"Um, fire, obviously." Inside Hinata's Byakugan ring it looked like a bit of snakes. Naruto could almost see live serpents of black fire twisting around each other fighting to get out. "But Hon-san, what are these little... doohickies here." Naruto pointed to eight dots that hung outside the pit of snakes.

"Those, Naruto, are a mystery. They could be eccentricities of Hinata's own chakra - kind of like the large black disk in the center of your own - or they might be something more. For what are mysteries, but the starting line for science."

0o00oo00o0o0o

The sun was holding on to the horizon with its fingernails when Hinata left the library. Hon had pulled out signatures from all sorts of different people - some of them were people Hinata knew. Kiba-kun and Shino-san had given their chakra signatures to Hon-sama, and lots of civilians too. And there were other famous people. Hon-sama even had a signature from her father and her sister. Her eyes felt strange now from looking at all the different designs. Some of them were really complicated, some of them were rather simple. She felt really proud, she had spent several hours with Naruto! It was like a dream.

But the thing that made her mind spin and her heard dizzy was what Hon-sama had asked her when Naruto had left to go to the restroom. "Hinata," He had said with a very serious face, "Even if it is just for this little time. Can you keep your vigil eyes watching out for my apprentice."

Hinata hadn't thought about it before, but Hon-sama was probably pretty lonely...

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

[Chapter 3 End]

Onyx: Well there it is. Chapter Three clocks in at about 13 thousand words. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this. I would also like to thank the indelible XxRazorgazexX for beta. And now for AFTER CHAPTER SHORTS! Today's guessed is none other than... Hon.

Hon: A pleasure.

Onyx: So Hon, I've got a question for you.

Hon: I shall endeavor to answer it satisfactorily.

Onyx: So why was all that probationary training necessary for Naruto. I mean we didn't get to see any of it and so far it seems to have made no difference in the story.

Hon: Onyx, are you aware that you - the author - are inquiring as to the reasoning of a specific plot point from one of your character?

Onyx: Yeah...

Hon: Very well then. What you have to understand is that Naruto actually spent very little time at the academy while he was enrolled - just enough not to get kicked out. Yes, he was gathering knowledge with me... the standard set of skills that most ninja have upon graduation were severely lacking. He had very little practice and needed to catch up to his peers as quickly as possible. If he surpassed some of them... even better. You see, Uzumaki Naruto, to many of the clerks in the Tower, is nothing more than a War asset. His training was necessary to making him a valuable weapon. Amongst the Secondary reasons for his supplementary training were the bonds he was forming with is new teacher. The Third Hokage hopes that these bonds would begin to tie Naruto more closely to the village. He now has several more role models from this village and even a friend (from what I can tell) in Anko. I would assume the reason why they were not included in the plot was because they were rather uninteresting and not directly relevant to anything in the immediate future. Am I right.

Onyx: Jeez you talk a lot.

Hon: You wrote me that way!

Onyx: I know, but we're outside the fourth wall you don't need to do that now.

Hon: Wait... if we stand outside the fourth wall... that means I can affect you directly, right?

Onyx: Uhhhh, I suppose.

Hon: SEAL OF THE GODS: ARMAGEDDON SMITE

Onyx: OH MY GOD *Burning several different colors of extrademnional fire* WHAT WAS THAT FOR?

Hon: Oh, you know what its for. You know. And that's all the time we have for the After Chapter Short. Please let the author know what you liked in the reviews, and what you didn't like. He does read every one of them... when he's not on fire.

0o0o00o0o0o0o

Footnote 1

For those of you at home keeping track of my chemistry: the products of the reaction between one large cat and the side of a building is a loud 'thunk,' an unconscious cat, and one annoyed wall.

Footnote 2

The Flower incident: one of Naruto's most infamous tricks in the past six months. Store several pounds of flour in a storage seal with explosive release properties, tape it under the council's table, detonate, laugh, then run - one of his best ideas yet!)

Footnote 3

Amongst the more radical and less sane population of Ninja in Konoha, there was a petition circling to induct the cat as an honorary shinobi. It wasn't that the jonin dislike all cats on principle, it was just that they disliked this, particular perpetually-reincarnated cat.

Footnote 4

Ikibi had actually used a shopping excursion with Sakura's mother as a form of torture once, the international torture accords (though only loosely followed) were quickly rewritten adding "forced to shop with anybody named Haruno" to the short list of universally abhorred torture methods. From the rumors he heard the poor man had snapped in the third lingerie shop and spilled everything he knew... everything.

Footnote 5

Kakashi had read through the entire textbook "Body Reading 404: Advanced Readings - Grins" It was very helpful, until the Hokage pulled out the "White Whale" grin - a grin with a meaning so long and boring that it actually overloads Kakashi's brain and sends him into a coma for about a week.

Footnote 6

And apparently it was also necessary to have highly trained ninjas manning the department too. The Hidden Village of the Fail (as it was called now) had tried using regular accountants in their accounting department, and well yeah... the name should be enough to tell you what happened.

Footnote 7

Kakashi had actually classified all of his worst nightmares in order of their severity. Naruto actually being his lost son was somewhere up around twenty-two. Naruto gaining access to a massive amount of explosives was down around ninety-seven. Naruto's fracture clone Psycho getting access to the same amount of explosives was number seven, beat out by Crazy with anything mildly caffeinated.


	4. Chapter 4

Kakashi walked through the door of the small library on the west side of town. The one that was spick and span, on a mostly deserted street (made only more empty by the ungodly hour). The one sandwiched between several long emptied apartment buildings. The infamous one. The one where that "demon" now lived. The library owned by Senju Hon.

Last night, Kakashi had found a small envelope blocking the way to his door. After he had opened it (using every ounce of caution he had) Kakashi had found a small note from Hon requesting a meeting at five-frick'n-thirty in the morning. Kakashi had tossed the note away and planned to maybe show up at the small library around nine... -ish.

That plan didn't work out so well for a couple reasons. First, Hon was old, which made him very persuasive. In that respect, he was a lot like the "old man" Hokage. There was that feeling about him that seemed to tell Kakashi that even if he _really _didn't want to do what he was asked, he probably should. Second, Hon was a master seal maker which meant he had access to some really nifty Trap Seals. Like the one that had dropped Kakashi off at the far end of the street at five-frik'n-twenty-five in the morning with an outfit (the one he wore yesterday) and a mug of hot coffee. (Footnote 1)

Kakashi had drunk the coffee and set off - for no explicable reason - toward the library. Bringing him here.

"All right, Hon. What do you want at this hour in the morning? And why do you have to be so troublesome," Kakashi asked as he walked into the reading room.

Across the room the librarian was doing something to the wall. Painting something? Kakashi didn't really care at this point. He was far too jittery from the coffee - that stuff had been really good and his body wanted more - and he care at this point. The librarian calmly stopped what he was doing and put down his brush, carefully setting it on a speckled cloth on the floor. And then he just stared at Kakashi. Kakashi couldn't figure out how he was so calm, there was cup of that same coffee right next to him. One glass had made Kakashi go from being very asleep to hyper awake. And what was that delicious smell that was coming from the window? He wanted to find out.

"What?" Kakashi finally spat after the staring contest had gone on long enough.

"The records do not indicate that your mother had any relation to the Nara Clan. However, considering your father's influence, you could be the offspring of some gallant foyer into the compound, and the records would ne'er have seen the name." He stopped for a second, "Pay no mentions to these ramblings and musings of an old man. Coffee, perhaps?" Hon gestured to the cup on the table.

"Yes! Please!" Kakashi practically dove at the coffee - mostly to keep himself from diving for the delicious smelling window. It was really good coffee, not exactly the same as the last cup, but still really good. "Haaahhhhh." Kakashi slid back in his chair, the coffee calming him down. "Alright, what do you want to talk about?"

"Kakashi, surely you are astute enough to realize I wish to speak on the same matter that all our conversations revolve around."

Kakashi raised his lone visible eyebrow. Hon flipped his hand, the edge of his long sleeve brushed his thumb and a puff revealed in his hand a scroll. He set the scroll on the table. "As for this, let us set it aside for a moment."

"Okay, what are we talking about?" Kakashi was growing frustrated. Hon always seemed to cause him to feel this way. Just get to the point already, he wanted to scream. Kakashi was beginning to understand where Naruto's annoying tendency to go on and on (and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...) came from. If all the social experience the kid had was pranking and sitting in this place with Hon, no wonder he was socially inept. Kakashi realized he needed to fix that, and not just because he was going to be driven out of his mind if the blond became any more like this guy; Naruto was going to be a ninja (the Hokage had made that much clear at their last meeting) so more than likely he would be given an undercover mission (especially given how well Naruto was able to create a believable shell, and his escape capabilities), if he couldn't get over this social blockade... well he might bore the information out of his target.

"Naruto, inescapably it seems."

"What about him?" Kakashi suddenly brightened up. "Are you okaying my request to permanently seal his voice?"

"You've made such a request?"

"No, but it would be nice... even just for a week."

"Hmmm. I wonder, would it be possible? It would..." Hon shook himself, "But I digress. Silencing Naruto would be a bad idea especially now that he seems to be a target."

"Target? What do you mean?" Kakashi's eye narrowed dangerously. "How do you know?"

Hon shivered as the temperature in the room dropped. Killing intent was slowly leaking from Kakashi. If there was somebody targeting one of his students... Kakashi quickly went over why anybody would be going after Naruto. Who, was his first question. If he could figure out who was after the kid he could begin deciphering why.

"Surely you have caught the boy wandering, lost, through the village, recently?"

"Yeah, his sense of direction isn't so good, how does..." Kakashi paused. His old ANBU friends complained routinely about the boys ability to hide himself in the village. "That doesn't make any sense though. He knows this village like the back of his hand, he knows shortcuts I don't even know about."

"Interestingly enough his spatial cognition returns almost immediately when a companion joins him. No doubt he's lodged complaints with you about 'headaches."

Kakashi nodded. Slowly his mind was beginning to fit the pieces together. "Genjutsu."

"Yes! Exactly, albeit a weak one. I can't tell you exactly what it does, but judging from the ANBU reports Naruto has been wandering toward the less populated areas of town. Like he's trying to avoid people - and their prying eyes. These clandestine agents obviously have expended a great deal of effort to remove Naruto from any witnesses. However I would not suppose that their intent is his termination - the return would be incongruous to the temporal cost they have already expended. Thus suggesting that, for their purposes, Naruto is meant to breathe."

"Someone is trying to kidnap Naruto! Who?" Kakashi felt some of the jitters of the coffee starting to come back. Little warning flags were going up all over his mind. You can't lose Naruto. This could be an international incident! There might be war! Who is behind this? Why are they going after Naruto? You can't lose Naruto. Kakashi wouldn't have admitted it, but that last one was the biggest warning. Somehow in the past six months Naruto had become... important. Annoying clones and all, Naruto was important. Sakura and Sasuke too. Kakashi felt anger well up inside him, anger at the shadowy men after Naruto, anger at himself for breaking his promise.

"I have no theories yet as to who. But I can tell you how, it is rather ingenious actually. The genjutsu they are using is so weak that it is undetectable - I have yet to find any physical evidence to support my hypothesis, but from his behavior it can be nothing else. It is doubtful that many would have noticed his disappearance for long enough that once we became aware, most likely his captors would have been halfway to their final destination by the time anyone became aware of his absence. One of the unfortunate side effects of his long training schedule: mundane absence."

"Does the-"

"The Hokage has been made aware of my discovery. And he has promised an extra vigilant patrol of ANBU. You will, however, excuse my lack of faith concerning our ANBU's reliability, their history with the boy warrants it."

"What do you want me to do about it then?" Kakashi asked. The vigor of a moment ago was fading, but remained nonetheless; he couldn't bring himself to not care this time.

"Make sure he has companionship at all times - a jonin would be best. And, when you see him after his new morning training routine, give him this." Hon picked up the small scroll he had produced at the beginning of the conversation. "Inside the scroll there is a lesson for him on higher level fuuinjutsu mechanics, complete with a drop box sealing scroll and a chakra storage gem. However I have also placed a 'silent seal' (footnote 2) that will track him. Just make sure that no one else touches this before he does."

"I understand." Kakashi nodded and took the scroll from Hon's hand.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto groaned. Body, status check, his brain seemed to say. After a second of reading the report, it didn't want to know anymore. Feet: hurt like hell. Legs: hurt like hell. Arms: hurt more like hell! Chest... that was about where Naruto's brain set the report down and proceeded to find itself a cure for the headache that was moving up his spine. Unfortunately there was no such cure forthcoming in his cranial cavity. Naruto groaned.

It was Saturday when this had all started. Saturday's were always interesting. Hon-san, despite taking him on as an apprentice, insisted that his training as a ninja come first. Now that he was staying with the old man at the library, Naruto had thought that maybe he could get in some more time learning from the battle seal-master. No luck. The old man had booted him out of the library at five-thirty in the morning. FIVE-THIRTY! How Hon managed to get Naruto dressed and into the middle of a training field was beyond him. Naruto knew there were seals for transporting people places - but they were rare and hard to use, but dressing seals? Dressing Seals!? On the other hand the existence of dressing seals logically suggested the existence of undressing seals. If both dressing and undressing seals existed... combining them would mean redressing seals could exist! Which would be helpful in the coming weeks of training with Gai-sense.

Gai-sensei was... interesting? Was that a polite way of putting it? Yes it was. Was it adequate? Noooooo.

If the spandex wasn't bad enough - and it was - the training sure made up for it- and then some. First they had "tested the flames of his youth!" As Gai had loudly exclaimed. Naruto was considering trying to look up a translation dictionary for Gai, but part of him told him that he really did not want to know - and a greater part agreed. The implications for understanding the man's insane babble were terrifying. To understand crazy, one must be equally crazy - some historian had said that about the earth countries campaign in the second shinobi war and if that was true... he never wanted to understand Gai. Lest he be sucked into the spandex cult.

If Hon-san was one end of the spectrum, than Gai was on the other side, over the edge and around the corner. So. Much. Energy. They had started off with a "jog" to "fan the flames of youth." Oh might Ramen strike him down if the irony was lost on him. By the end of that jog Naruto had been ready to drop dead. He was fairly certain that he had left behind several liters of perspiration around Konoha. They had done several laps around the VILLAGE in less than an hour. They had to have "jogged" at least twelve miles! And they hadn't even been breathing that hard. Naruto should have realized at that point that he was going to die doing this every morning for at least another six months, but at that point it had at least been only a once a week experience (as far as he was aware).

Then they had proceeded to beat the crap out of Naruto in a ritual of pain they called "Sparring." Naruto had been abstractly aware of all thing things one could do to the body using taijutsu... in that respect he had become a great deal more educated. Oh yes, his taijutsu sucked, but if mini-me Gai, Lee, was the stick to which he was being measured he would continue sucking for a very, _very_ long time.

After a very full Saturday, Naruto had laid down on his futon in the room Hon was loaning him, very very happy that Saturday was finished. He had not been looking forward to the next Saturday, but Naruto had been convinced that if the green clad wrath was to come again, it would be in a weeks time. That was until he woke up in his everyday uniform in the middle of the same training field to the emphatic cries of "Bright Burning YOUTH!"

Naruto had been curtain, every bone in his body had told him so, that he was going to die that second morning. The blinding green beast of Konoha had presented Naruto with training weights to match Lees. Admittedly they were orange, making them somewhat awesome, however they were instruments of masochism nonetheless. Gai had strapped them on with joyous abandon and called out for a youthful warm up jog. ((Naruto felt like tempting the fates again with another plea for swift death - but thought better of it. He already felt like there was something heavy and musical coming in his general direction from very far above.)) Thankfully the training session didn't go on all day, but they made up for it, oh how they made up for it. That jog that they had done the first day? Yeah that one got cut down by fifteen minutes. Same distance, same route, three quarters the time, with weights. And if anything Lee was moving even faster during their sparring session. In between the jogging and the beating Gai-sensei had actually taught Naruto some interesting stretches and the basics for taijutsu, kata. (Apparently that was another thing that he had missed at the Academy in favor of Hon's books. The kata he knew were apparently very spread out: some basic kata, some medium kata, some advanced kata; but nothing close to an adequate sequence. No wonder he sucked.) Naruto actually liked kata, if he did them at a certain speed they were fairly easy to do, and didn't require pushing himself to the brink of death to perform.

Part of him was still hoping this whole thing was some extended genjutsu that he couldn't break out of. But come this morning, Monday, he was woken yet again by the Gai-sensei alarm clock of YOUTH! (Patent pending). His legs had been threatening to work their way up to his neck and strangle him in retribution after the morning's thirty minute jog. Naruto had collapsed unceremoniously when his legs finally stopped moving. "Why? You guys can't even be human." He had mumbled into the dirt.

"Naruto, you set a most youthful pace!"

"I set what? No. I was trying to keep up with you guys."

"Naruto," Gai struck a 'most youthful' pose and smiled, "I may burn bright with the fires of youth, but if I were to let them shine to their fullest, no doubt my students would be snuffed out! So I damper my flames so that you are not burned by them. That you managed to match Lee is most admirable, and surprising. You should not have worried, for I would helped feed your flames at any pace. But you have shown so much youthfulness, even I am surprised."

_The following is from the Record of Naruto's Brain_

_To: Department of Crazy_

_From: Department of Daily Faculties_

_Requesting translation. Original language: Insane Gai. Requested Translation: Everyday Speak_

_To: Department of Daily Faculties_

_From: Department of Crazy_

_You did this to yourself, dumb-butt._

Naruto groaned as he remembered that humbling revelation. It was sometime shortly after that that his logic filters had kicked in and translated the last bit of what Gai had said. Now that they had seen this from him, they would be expecting it. Naruto also realized that given the emerging pattern this would become a regular thing now. At that point his brain had decided that it didn't want to live in this body anymore and tried to vacate the premises. It had not succeeded.

Naruto sighed. "If there is a hell, it involves green spandex."

"Amen." Kakashi nodded.

"Holy Ramen! When did you get here?" Naruto jumped as he suddenly became aware of Cockeye-sensei's presence. Cockeye-sensei shrugged and pulled out his little orange book.

"Did you just deify Ramen?"

"Answer the question!"

"Well I was just in the area and I saw you so..."

"You're stalking me?" Naruto was surprised. He wasn't used to people stalking him, at least that he knew of... "Don't people normally do that with Sasuke."

Kakashi turned sharply to look at him. "Who is stalking Sasuke." Hints of danger crept into the man's voice. And there was this cold feeling that seemed to shoot out from his eye. Naruto was frozen in his tracks. "Ahh, ahh" Naruto tried to get his numb tongue to work right, "Well almost all the girls from the academy, several wealthy shop keeps - interestingly enough all of them have daughters - and ahh, a couple creepy old ladies."

"Oh." The dangerous aura slipped away from Kakashi. "Okay, they're fine."

"Cockeye-sensei, two questions: why is it okay for Sasuke to be stalked by _those_ kind of people? and what kind of people would worry you if they were stalking Sasuke?" Naruto asked, remembering the happy aura that the man excreted whenever he proposed some form of training that didn't require a lot of work from him and was absolute torture for his students. It was times like these that Naruto imagined his sensei was smiling, cruel and terrible.

"Oh, they just want him for his clan's reputation... or his body. If they were trying to steal his sharingan, well then I would have to hunt them down and kill them."

"Oh." Naruto nodded. That made sense, as long as he chose to ignore the disturbing implications of his sensei being okay with several very old ladies lusting after a twelve year old. "So, back to the original question: You're stalking me?"

"No." Kakashi looked away from Naruto and flipped the page of his small orange book.

Naruto was skeptical but chose not to press it any farther. "So then what are you here for? Oh, Ramen. Please don't tell me- you're the reason for these morning torture, I mean 'training', sessions with the Blinding Green Beast of Konoha."

"Okay fine, I won't tell you that.."

"Oh, Dang it!" Naruto wanted to scream. He was going to kill Kakashi. First he would need to seriously restock his supply of semi-lethal medicinal supplies. That would require quite a bit of time in training ground 44, but it would be worth it. It would take about a week for the Fangless Venom to reach full potency. But he could use that time to extract chlorine to produce a strong enough acid to dissolve the man's body. But what would he do with all the leftover acid? He could leave it near Sasuke's house? No that wouldn't be fair, and too easy to track back to him. It needed to be someplace no one would ever go. The Dump! Naruto thought, there was a corner of the village garbage heap that no one was allowed anywhere near - something about zombies - that would be the perfect hiding place for Kakashi's amorphous goo. Now the only question was how to get him in contact with the fangless venom. The best way would be for it to get directly into his bloodstream. However, despite trying multiple times the only way Naruto ever got a hit on his sensei was if he pulled out the clones, and there was no way of hiding that from people. He would need to be sneakier, maybe coating that orange book of his. Hmm that could work.

"Sorry Naruto, they already tried that."

"Tried what, Cockeye-sensei?" Naruto tried to act as innocent as possible. Kakash didn't buy it.

"Naruto, I'm a jonin. Do you really think I'd let myself get killed by you?"

"I don't know what you're-"

"And I check my books every day for poisons."

"What? But?" Naruto was stunned. There was no way he could have known what he was thinking. There was no way he was that paranoid. It was inconceivable, that would he checked everything before he touched it. Unless... "Do you read minds?"

"No. I can just read you that well. It's really not that hard Naruto. You don't have much... how should I say it, subtlety. Anybody could probably read you like an open book, once they get to know you." Kakashi shrugged. "And besides, if you want to kill someone, don't kill me. After all, it was your master that suggested the change."

Naruto felt his heart drop. Knowing Hon-san, and how much he cared about Naruto's ninja training it was probably true. It was okay to fantasize about ending Cockeye-sensei because he was slothful, lecherous, and mildly sadistic. Hon-san was kind, and smart, and helpful, and definitely more dangerous that what he had seen of Kakashi. Not that he would ever want to hurt Hon-san. Hon-san was, well Hon-san was special. He was number one on a very very short list of people who actually liked Naruto - though that list was growing. Hon-san, the first person to ever help Naruto, his savior, his master, his idol, the most important person in Naruto's life. Number two was Iruka-sensei - but he was much more recent. If he had to write down his list of "most important people" they would come first in big swooping calligraphy. ((Followed by the people at Ichiraku Ramen, they were like priests of Ramen which immediately shoved them as close to the top as possible))

"Speaking of your master. I was just talking with him. You know about the weather, your training, and other such fun things. He asked me to give you this, apparently it's kind of important." Kakashi tossed Naruto a thin message scroll from his pocket. Naruto scrambled to catch the message, but his muscles were still stiff and sore from training with Gai-sensei and Lee. Naruto barely managed to pinch the scroll before it fell to the ground.

"Whew." If there was a seal transcribed inside the scroll getting it dirty could ruin it. Examining the message Naruto saw that there was indeed a lock-sealing, or "classical" seal affixed to the leading edge of the paper. It was fairly simple as far as seals went. Naruto could see methods for applying a thin line of chakra to bind the leading edge so that the paper wasn't torn and a standard locking method - one that Hon liked to use on some of the higher level scrolls at the library.

"Release." Naruto applied a little intent to his chakra to unlock the seal. With the smallest of hisses the scroll opened. Naruto had always been amazed with how little by-product Hon-san's seals made. They were always so perfect. He had seen some storage belched volumes of heavy white smoke when they were activated - kind of like when Naruto tried to perform a jutsu.

_Naruto, I hope your training went well this morning. I understand Gai-san's training is arduous, but preserve, the rewards will be worth the effort. Surely, if you commit yourself you will improve with the same speed that you have in your fuuinjutsu._

_My research in progressing, however a certain question has arisen whose answer might lead to some future avenues of experimentation. Though, before I can explore further I must unlock this gate. Somehow the key seems to be related to a certain request that you put forth not long ago. _

_If you would, for a moment, remember your chakra signature. The heavy orb of chakra located in the center, sparked my interest when I could find no precedent in my library. I didn't notice at first because of its similarities to a great many other signature structures. However upon further investigation I found some difficulties reconciling the difference between your structure and the records. I have formulated the hypothesis that it might not actually be a structure, but rather that the chakra was too dense for the reading paper to measure properly. I would like to investigate with you further - but your training must take precedence._

_If you would permit a slight discontinuity in this letter. I believe the hour has arrived that I should begin introducing you to some of the more abstract concepts of seal making. I won't burden today's training with many of these concepts, however..._

_You will find a seal affixed before the termination of this letter. Stored therein is a trinket, you should be able to figure out what it is. I should have made it large enough, even when juxtaposed to your own massive reserves. Examine it, and when you believe you have an explanation for its behavior, return it, and a note detailing your hypothesis to the affixed seal. If you also surmise mechanics of the affixed seal work, rewards in kind._

_Good luck with your studies today, Naruto._

Naruto looked down and read the scroll again quickly. Kakashi was hovering over him like some sort of bug, and it was rather annoying. Then again, it really didn't matter if he read it. Hon-san had different voices, depending on what he wanted to convey. He had the Nice voice to congratulate Naruto, and a Stern voice to rebuke him, just like everybody. But when he was writing, Naruto could still hear Hon-san voices. Like his "I am subtly making fun of this" voice or his "This is the best answer anyone has come up with but I'm still not sold" voice." He could almost see Hon-san's wry smile as he spoke in his "Listen to what I'm thinking, not what I'm saying" voice.

"Soo?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto shrugged, "It's some kind of test. I'll figure it out sooner or later. By the way, don't you have go train Sasuke and Sakura?" It was Kakashi's turn to shrug.

He passed, in favor of a lazy bl-(w)ink, and the social game progressed to a long awkward stalemate. "Eh, okay. See you Naruto." And he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Unfortunately, Naruto was not able to explore this mystery for Ebisu was already waiting for him at the hot springs. Naruto stopped in front of Ebisu and bowed. "Good morning Sensei!" One... Two... Three... Naruto counted and then straightened his back up, completing the first part of the Monday morning ritual. Ebisu nodded, in the morning sun, his thick black lenses flashed. After Naruto has pestered him for a week, Ebisu had explained that the peculiar eyewear was a training exercise of his own. As to what he was training, the pale man had forgotten to mention, but Naruto suspected it had something to do with training the other four senses. "Good morning Naruto. Have you been practicing?"

"Yes sensei." Naruto replied, "I practiced two hours on Tuesday, and Thursday, one on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday, two and a half hours on Friday, and Three hours on Saturday."

"Any progress?"

"No." Naruto looked away, "Or very little. I was only able to hold three nails on my palm for four minutes, twenty seven seconds."

Ebisu nodded again, curtly. "I suppose that will have to do for now. Most ninja, even a genin, should be able to hold five nails for a time twice that. However, since you're you. We'll try moving on."

"Wait but-" Naruto protested. He didn't want to move on. He was finally getting the hang of this exercise, he didn't want to start all over again. In the past six months they had tried the same number of chakra exercises and it was getting frustrating not being able to master any one of them. He almost reached passable proficiency when Ebisu revamped the whole training. Naruto really wanted to be able to do one of these things right! Ebisu's face narrowed, Naruto could tell sensei was glaring through squinty eyes at him. Naruto knew that Ebisu wanted him to defy his order. Ebisu enjoyed putting Naruto in his place. Normally Naruto didn't want to give the skinny man the satisfaction but... "I don't want to move on. I almost have this one I think, just another week, please!"

"Naruto, I am your sensei, you will do as I say. This approach is obviously not working, so we must take a different one. Understood?" Ebisu leered through his blacked-out spectacles.

"Yes, Sensei." Naruto grumbled.

Ebisu pulled out a small black box and pushed it toward Naruto. A fine red ribbon encircled the box, yellow wax had been dripped onto the center of the lid, holding the ribbon to the box. Impressed into the wax was the family crest of a very expensive weapons shop. Naruto had often looked in the windows of the fancy shop on the main street. There was always at least one Ninja in there, trying to lower the price. Naruto had wondered why the weapons sold there were so much more expensive (and thus more likely to get him kicked out for even just looking at them). One day he had followed the owner back to the edge of the village to a forage. Hiding up in the tree, Naruto had learned that the owner was actually a retired ninja; he could light his fires with Katon no jutsu, and control the flames with hand seals. The men worked there in short staccato bursts of blinding speed. And even though his chakra sensing skills were exceeded by everything but his chakra control, he could feel lots and lots of chakra coming from the blades. When he did some research back at the library, the shop was famous for chakra sensitive blades.

"Ehhhhhhh." Naruto held the box gingerly, but tightly. Too afraid to damage the beautiful box, too scared to open it.

"Naruto it is a tool for our next exercise, please open it quickly so that we can proceed." And Naruto opened the box to reveal a single kunai. "The exercise we will be beginning today is usually the first step in learning chakra flow techniques. What is chakra flow, Naruto?"

"Chakra Flow is the process by which chakra is forced through a conduit - generally a metal blade - in order to endow the blade with special abilities. The most common type of chakra flow techniques sharpen and strengthen the blade, however lightning chakra can endow certain numbing side effects, and water chakra can improve the blades maneuverability. There are many more rarer techniques as well. It might, however, be a mistake to call chakra flow a jutsu - even non-chakra users may unconsciously use chakra flow. However more importantly, chakra flow doesn't actually require chakra molding - some nature manipulation to be sure - but mostly chakra flow works as if the blade were another part of one's body; hence the feeling that many chakra flow users have that they actually become "one" with the blade. So it really isn't a jutsu but a controlled extension of one's chakra circulatory system."

Ebisu had long ago stopped being surprised with Naruto's answers. But that didn't stop Naruto from trying, and sometimes he was rewarded with success. This time he was not. Ebisu nodded sharply and continued. "Today we will begin working on what is known as the 'Glowing Kunai' exercise. Normally this is considered a high level extended continuous flow exercise, usually given to high level chunin. Mostly that's because the exercise is chakra intensive; something that is a non-problem for you. However, that also means the primary purpose of the exercise is moot: because continuous release of chakra rarely is your issue."

"So why are you making me-"

"Hush and listen, you. The reason I've chosen this exercise is because it has a visual aspect, in order to reinforce the innate feel for your chakra that we're trying to instill in you. Perhaps you will be able to grasp the direction you need to begin moving instead of wildly flailing about grasping at everything and accomplishing nothing."

"Hey! I resent that remark! And it's not wildly flailing about, I just don't "feel" what you're talking about!"

But Ebisu just ignored Naruto. "Now take the Kunai, grasp it by the hilt and push chakra along your arm and out through your hand into the blade. At a certain level you should notice a faint blue glow. Lets start off with the smallest amount that you can control."

"Yeah, yeah. I know how to use chakra!"

"Obviously not. Small stream, now."

Naruto grumbled but pulled out the fantastically expensive knife and grasped it unceremoniously. He reached inside himself, deep inside, somewhere around his Internal Ramen Storage Compartment and opened the door. He knew that spiritual energy was mixing with physical energy to form stable - or not so stable as the case might be - energy, known as chakra. Supposedly some people could feel and control how they mixed, Naruto couldn't. Not unless he tried so hard that his head began to hurt. He had learned shortly after meeting Ebisu that he could not "feel" chakra like other ninjas. At first he had thought that he was like Hon-san, at least a little, but as he had puzzled out the question he realized that the more probable answer was the demon fox sealed inside him had messed up his body so bad that he was incapable of normal "human" functions. The chakra flowed from his hara, his center, along his arm, and out though his hand.

It was blue - possibly an explanation for the slight blue-ish tinge that Naruto had noticed in the metal of the Kunai - but it wasn't exactly something Naruto would call a faint glow.

"Shut it off! Shut it off! Shut if off! I said SMALL Naruto!" Ebisu screeched kind of like a girl and jumped back from the training device. In the desire to stop the raging blue inferno of chakra spewing from the kunai, Ebisu and Naruto were of the same mind. The only problem was that the flaming kunai neither wanted to shut off, nor leave Naruto's wildly flailing hand. This was probably because of an earlier exercise that Ebisu had tried teaching Naruto, "sticky kunai." It was possibly the only exercise that Naruto had gotten down pat. Well, down pat, flat, and solid - if the current situation was any judge.

Finally the chakra slowed down enough for the kunai to come flying out of Naruto's hand, much to his relief, and one poor, poor bonsai's despair. The unfortunate tree didn't stand a chance against the (admittedly diminished) inferno on a knife. "I said small stream!" Ebisu's voice cracked halfway through, completely ruining any commanding effect they would have had.

"I did!" Naruto looked back down at the kunai "At least, I thought I did."

Ebisu pushed his glasses up on his nose and sighed. "Do it again, with less chakra - there is no point in having a visual aid if it blinds you."

Naruto nodded and tried again. He really couldn't tell if he was using less chakra, it really felt the same amount as the last one but... Maybe this was why his shadow clones turn out so well. He might have actually been appropriating huge amounts of chakra. If a small trickle was enough to light a kunai... what was the actual amount of the fairly large portions that he was flinging out that first night?

This second time was much the same. However the flames were a little dimmer... but only a little. It was funny, Naruto thought, that even though the uncontrolled chakra looked like fire, only occasionally was it hot. Mostly it was warm, like a living body. There were little licks of heat in the fire, and occasionally it felt like the flames suddenly froze. He wondered if that was normal, then again he had never heard of someone holding a giant mass of raw chakra in their hand - normally it didn't work like that, Naruto understood - so he had nothing to compare to.

"Again."

"Again."

"Again."

By the time they broke for lunch, Naruto was dead tired. It was amazing how much controlling small amounts of chakra took out of him. One would figure that larger amounts of chakra would take more to control... but at least for Naruto that wasn't true. He didn't have enough data, but Naruto expected that was not the case for most people. Just another thing that made him different than everybody else - and another reason why he liked battle seals better. You didn't actually have to control your chakra; just activate the seal and it took what it needed. Okay, he could see how that might be dangerous for other people, but for him it worked just fine. But Hon-san insisted that Naruto learn all the skills of a Ninja; every time Naruto suggested that he just learn battle seals Hon-san firmly rejected the idea.

Speaking of Hon-san... Naruto pulled the scroll from his fanny pack and examined the seal. Once he believed he had ascertained the purpose and process of the seal, he activated it. With the faintest puff of smoke a small pink gem pulled itself into existence and onto Naruto's palm. It really was no bigger than Naruto's fingernail, and felt cold to the touch. It was like it was pulling heat from his palm and hiding it away. Intrigued Naruto held the small gem up to the light. Would it absorb the heat from the sun too? Naruto couldn't tell if it did or not, but what he noticed intrigued him even more. Hidden inside the beautiful little jewel, cast by the lights passing through the carefully cut facets on to plains caught within the crystal matrix hung the ghostly characters _hogo: _safeguard, protect.

Naruto smiled. There was a seal written inside the crystal, using the crystal itself like a scroll. It was acting like a chakra battery, charging itself off of the latent chakra cycling through his system. This must have been one of the higher level concepts that Hon-san had mentioned in his letter. If you could write seals inside crystals... that opened up all sorts of possibilities. Like putting seals inside kunai, like exploding kunai! Or he could write them in wood grain, or maybe in rocks, the list went on. He would have to ask about how he went about crafting seals like this.

Oh! Naruto needed to ask about redressing seals too, that was an absolute necessity.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

It was only Tuesday afternoon and already the hazy aura of a migraine had begun to settle in. His head hurt and the trip back to the library seemed to have been stretched out three fold. The most annoying thing of all however, was the great green spandexed man that he had happened upon alone the central shopping district. Okay, Naruto lied. Gai-sensei and his shorter - but equally as energetic clone - wasn't the most annoying thing of the afternoon. That particular title went to the kid in blinding white walking next to Naruto.

"How can you stand it." Naruto asked for a second time, louder than before. Apparently he was hard of hearing. When he didn't answer, "I said, how do you stand those two?"

Still: nothing. "Of for the love of Ramen please just say something!"

...

"GRAGGRHHGHH!" Forget elegance, part of Naruto said, just strangle the kid now. Another part however reminded him that strangling a genin with a year more experience (and from a noble clan no less) in front of his sensei was probably a bad idea. But that didn't make the fantasies any less wonderful.

"Kakashi! My hip eternal rival. Your student has been most youthful. There are times when I wish his youthful youth had been sown in my youthful garden of youth!" Tenten - that poor saintly martyr - shied away from her master at that point, looking around nervously at the public around them. Naruto leaned out behind to see that, yes in fact, his lazy case manager was strolling calmly through the crowds. Still in the Raging, Flaming, Green Beast of Konoha's blind spot Naruto blatantly pantomimed drawing something very sharp across his wrist.

"Uzumaki-san!" Naruto stopped when Lee notices him. "Do you wish to learn to play the violin?"

Naruto started slashing the imaginary dagger at his hand. Wolves were known to chew off their own legs when caught in a trap, and Naruto was beginning to understand why.

Cockeye-sensei clearly knew what Naruto meant. Naruto wasn't sure how he knew that Kakashi knew, but he knew that Kakashi knew that he knew that Kakashi knew what he meant. Maybe he was learning to read people better, maybe he subconsciously knew that Kakashi was a competent ninja, maybe it was the small wink that Kakashi gave him, but Naruto was ready to gurgle in frustration even before the lazy man opened his mouth. "Violin, Naruto? That might be an excellent idea."

"GAAAAAAAAA! Oh Ramen! Strike me down now!"

It was only a couple of seconds before whole block was almost completely empty. Tenten was the first to speak. "Why does it feel like we should be avoiding something very heavy right now."

Kakashi shrugged, "Oh that just happens whenever Naruto tempts fate." The jonin kicked the whimpering genin on the ground lightly. "Hey get up. I'm headed toward the library, you want to join me?"

Naruto nearly fused to Kakashi's leg. "Yes please!"

They were out of earshot - and potential blast radius of any large explosions as a result of Naruto's plea to Ramen - before Kakashi said anything. "Soo, Naruto. Hows training?"

"Cockeye-sensei, you're stalling."

"I am not."

"Yes you are. You never do small talk. Well you hardly talk, but more importantly you never do small talk. Plus if you really wanted to know how my training was going you could just get a report from my instructors. But," Naruto shrugged, "Raido wasn't all bad today, see look what I can do." Naruto yanked out several kunai, closed his eyes and began to juggle. Catch the handle, see the pattern, toss the blade, catch the... wait why weren't any of his kunai coming down. He couldn't even hear them displaced air anymore.

Naruto opened his eyes and saw Cockeye-sensei holding three kunai up to his face. "These," He emphasized the point by shaking the weapons a little, "Are weapons. They are to be respected. I don't want to see you killing yourself with them."

"Those," Naruto pointed at Kakashi's hand, "Are dummies. They are to be juggled. I want to see you juggling them."

Kakashi brought the dummy weapons up to his face for closer inspection. He sighed, and began to juggle them. He was actually really good, even tossing them up from behind him and catching them. Until...

_Click_

Kakashi froze and one, two, three kunai fell to the ground. (One first took a short detour to hit Naruto's head.)

"That's great Konohamaru!"

"I know, you think anyone will buy this?"

"Ha, ha, maybe the newspaper will take it."

Naruto couldn't see where the voices were running off to, but they sounded young.

"Gaaa! Stupid kids, watch where you're going!" Naruto could however immediately place that stuck up drawl. Uchiha Sasuke, and he was heading straight toward them. That didn't make any sense, Sasuke didn't live near the library - at least that Naruto knew of. Naruto had never come across him on any of the routes that he normally took home. Then again, he had never actually been on this road before. He had just been following Kakashi and trying to forget the slowly fading headache. Suddenly Naruto's brain kicked into overdrive. He turned and glared at his case manager.

"You."

"Me." Kakashi wasn't looking at Naruto. In fact his eyes were wandering around looking at everything but Naruto.

"You planned this."

"I planned what?"

"I don't know, yet. But you planned this."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Oh! Sasuke! Come over here for as second. I've got something to talk with you about."

"Huh? What?" Sasuke looked around wildly for a second before his eyes caught on the waving jonin. Naruto heard him grumble as he began to walk toward them. He looked tired, and there were scratches all over his face, no doubt the work of Tora, the demon cat. Kakashi began to speak with his student about training and other such trivial matters, so Naruto tuned them out.

He instead pulled out training kunai that Ebisu had given him and began to concentrate on that. He had come across several interesting facts over the past day and a half. He could now get the blade to light up without becoming a blue bonfire. Secondly, Naruto learned that, circulating through his system like blood was about the same amount of chakra as about five replacement techniques. In theory he should be able to perform several jutsus without even pulling any of the chakra stored in his hara. However, to paraphrase Hon-san, theory sucked. Using that chakra was kind of like trying to control his blood, or his lymph node system. Vital systems that keep one alive usually don't like the consciousness messing around with them. Thus making the glowing kunai exercise even more difficult - as the only way to not start the kunai aflame - was basically incorporating the chakra conductive kunai into his own chakra system. And then there were those stupid chakra "flecks."

Naruto was beginning to wonder why he didn't just leave when Kakashi broke his concentration. "Oh, yes. Naruto. You and Sasuke are going to be doing some extra training tonight."

"We're what?" Neither was certain who had said it first.

"Special training how?" Naruto narrowed his eyes at the jonin. His honed "prankers intuition" was screaming 'alert! alert! Danger, Uzumaki Naruto!'

"Oh, don't worry. It's just an exercise to build social awareness, and develop deeper teamwork," Kakashi waved them off.

"I don't like where this is going." Sasuke took a step back from their sensei, who was now glowing with evil glee.

"Officially we would call it a 'CRASH partner familiarization activity.' Though, I suppose, if Sakura were to find out about this, she would call it a 'slumber party.' Naruto, pack your bags for a night at Sasuke's house."

_To: Department of Daily Faculties_

_From: Department of Crazy_

_Do you need a translation for this?_

_..._

_..._

_..._

_To: Department of Daily Faculties_

_From: Department of Crazy_

_Hello? Anyone there?_

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Onyx: Well here we have it folks. Chapter 4, you are in fact 2 chapters away from the stunning conclusion to this arch. And now it is time for THE AFTER CHAPTER SHORT! But first a big shout out to XxRazorgazexX my fabuloso beta. Now onto the short!

...

Onyx: Okay well, this is awkward, I don't actually have a guest for this chapter. I could have sworn I had them lined up... I hope they didn't die or anything. Oh well. How about this? Are there any characters that you readers would like to talk to? Since this area of the chapter exists beyond the fourth wall, this gives you the opportunity to ask any of the characters that have appeared in TLC questions about the Alternate Universe. Or you can just ask me questions? Leave your questions or suggestions in the comments.

Onyx: To fill up time in this ACS I suppose I will address some of the comments that have been brought up so far. BUT FIRST: I want to thank all the viewers of this fic, regardless whether you actually read this story, you helped me meet a huge goal of mine. Within 25 hours of chapter 3's posting I receive 1000 views. A huge landmark for me, thank you! Now onto the reviews.

dalulzing writes: MOAR

Onyx: Granted. I feel like Santa Claus!

Cortelyou writes: There are a bunch of minor grammatical errors throughout, but overall the

story is amazing and consistent :)

Onyx: I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect. I hope that as I go on that there will be fewer and fewer grammatical (and spelling) errors. But I am very glad that you think the story is "amazing." And even more consistent: that has been a big challenge for me, trying to keep the facts of this world consistent both with itself and with my favorite parts of the original work.

Onyx: riverm8rix wrote a great review that truly made my day when I read it. However, while I may seem to be original I can't claim to be it in actuality. Works that you might enjoy if you find my paltry attempts would include Team 8 by Viridian, Naruto Fuujinroku by Daneel Rush (If you can find it), Yet Again, but With a Little Help by Third Fang, and Chunin Exam Day by Lionheart. These are just a few of a long list really good works that I actually steal a great deal from. Oh, and this is just a shameless plug, but also look into the Digimon fandom - there is a lot of really high quality work there.

Onyx: Kagami Kamiya asked some great questions about the Clones. And in general I have heard some good things about Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho - for which I am glad because they are some of the most fun characters to write. Kagami Kamiya made a great observation about the possible compartmentalizing of the clones abilities and personalities. And without giving away too much of their eventual progression... yes. They are compartmentalized each with obvious strengths and glaring faults. Naruto's own personality and the personality of each of the clones will develop independently. Well okay, not completely, but I will leave you to find that out.

And finally for this ACS:

Weasel Fu writes: I really like your story so far. I like Hon, and it seems like you're doing a good job of making him a believable character, not just some super Santa Claus who hands out awesome to your favorite characters. I liked your idea for the clone personalities and I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with this story.

Onyx: Well thank you. It has been a lot of fun working with Hon and I am glad that he is being well accepted. Just know that he will be the only OC (aside from the clones, and maybe one other) that will be seen very much in this series. So if you are afraid of Super Santa Claus, don't be. The world of Naruto plus my own changes provide me with enough cannon fodder, so I really don't need to make many more.

Onyx: Well thank you for reading through this latest chapter (for those of you counter it clocks in as the smallest chapter at just under 9000 words). Please review, ask questions, tell your friends about this story, and then maybe read and review again. and that is all for

AFTER CHAPTER SHORTS!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Footnote 1

The mug of hot bitter-sweet liquid that Kakashi found and ingested was not actually coffee. But rather an herbal mixture using several rare variety of tea leaves, sweet beans, flower pollen, milk from a subtropical nut-fruit, and a small amount of neurotoxin. Not only was the drink a great stimulant and an excellent cure for all but the worst hangovers, it altered the victim's brain chemistry implanting an overriding urge to find a certain flower and attempt to pollinate it. That morning Hon had put a pot of said flower's pollen in the window of his library, to attract the lazy jonin. The librarian also had an antidote in order to prevent the scarecrow from becoming a flower-fondling lunatic for the next month.

Footnote 2

Silent Seals are actually a form of Trapping Seals that activate upon touch. Silent Seals are written in a type of ink that quickly fades away so they are invisible as well as their nominal characteristic of silent activation. Most Silent Seals are paired with a transcription seal that copies yet another seal onto the target; like the one Hon put on Kakashi's door handle that brought him to the deserted street at five-thirty in the morning, or the one on Naruto's bed...


	5. Chapter 5

(Footnotes can be found at the end of the chapter, after the After-Chapter-Short)

"Oi, bratt. What are you doing he- Hello Kakashi." Anko smiled at the very last second. Unfortunately for Naruto, his brain - already in a state of shock - registered several interesting things: first that Anko was actually wearing normal clothes, not a trenchcoat in sight; secondly that those normal clothes were actually a very well tailored yukata; and third was that a bl... Naruto never actually completed the third thought before his brain decided that he had had enough for the day and was going to clock out. And maybe call in sick tomorrow too.

Kakashi, wise or not, stayed silent.

"Oh, come on! Really? Is it that big of a shock to see me like this?"

The boys, wise or not, nodded.

"I came from a tea ceremony. Don't mess up my good mood."

Naruto nodded and produced, on sheer instinct, his prototype exploding seal. It still had kinks to work out sure, but Anko was a big girl and she could handle herself. That might have been Naruto's rationalization to giving Anko what was either a dud, or massive bomb - if he were actually thinking. The echo chamber of Naruto's empty head was having a hard enough time keeping his heart beating, so when the words "good mood" and "Anko" entered into the mix it took the quickest way out: making Anko happy.

"Is this?"

Naruto nodded and began to walk forward and into the apartment building. And then stopped. "Anko," Naruto's brain figured it should return before Naruto did something stupid, "You didn't happen to put any traps around here? Did you?"

"You really think I would booby trap my own house?" There was a long pause after Anko asked that. Kakashi nodded, Sasuke nodded, Naruto nodded vehemently.

Anko smiled, "Okay maybe a little. But I can't go around booby trapping the whole apartment building."

"Don't step on the third tile from the left, it's got poison spikes. The wall will shoot kunai at you if you stay in one spot too long, and every door frame has a katana hidden inside of it," Sasuke supplied. Naruto nodded..

Anko looked at Naruto. Sasuke looked and Anko. Kakashi read his book. Naruto wanted to figure out what poison Anko no doubt put on the katana in her door frames. (Footnote 1) Naruto shrugged off the unmistakable urge to note the similarity of some statement to a previously uttered phrase by some unmentioned female. And that wasn't important right now. What was important was why he was walking into Sasuke's apartment building in the first place!

"Anko," Naruto managed to pull himself away from the door, "how much do kidnapping missions usually cost?"

"A lot," Anko shrugged. "Why?"

"Could you kidnap me right now?" Naruto pleaded.

"Really, Dweep. It's not going to be that bad. Okay it probably is going to be that bad, but if there is anyone who should be asking for a kidnapping, it is me! I mean, by the end of this I might not have an apartment anymore. People don't like things blowing up, especially in apartment buildings."

"I know that. Then again, my apartment building burned down last month and I - I - I just gave Anko one of my prototype explosive tags" Naruto felt something very massive drop into his lower intestinal tract. They were... not tested? Was that the right way of putting it? Okay well even worse than that Hon-san hadn't even looked them over yet, something that Hon-san always demanded before testing could commence. Naruto specifically remembered something about a safe blast radius, bomb squads, and shielding even if he got the okay to test them. Even if you weren't activating seals, i.e. putting chakra in them, chakra still tended to seep into them as you were writing them. Otherwise they really wouldn't work. Anyway - point was - that more than likely because of Naruto's houseguest his explosive seals would be a bit heavy on the whole explosivity concept. Now how that was going to be expressed - in fire, in shock wave, in shrapnel or in the possible but highly unlikely: radiation - was yet to be known. And he had given a untested, unsanctioned prototype to Anko.

Anko wasn't there anymore.

"We're all doomed," Naruto whimpered.

Sasuke sighed a long deep sigh. "And I have to spend my last night with you. You're right. We are all doomed."

"Oh, it will be fun!" Cock-eye-sensei smiled, or at least seemed to.

"Bastard." Naruto couldn't tell who had said it first, him or Sasuke.

"Oh, get inside both of you."

Sasuke's apartment wasn't huge. Naruto knew it was bigger than his old apartment, but it wasn't nearly as big as he thought the great Uchiha would get. Visually it was bland, clean-ish, but bland. However there was this one part of the room that seemed to glow - at least to Naruto it did. Along one wall was a shelf. A scroll shelf. And it was full of scrolls - jutsu scrolls. "Are those..."

"Would you like tea, or water." Sasuke offered pulling out two jugs from the (pretty empty) refrigerator. Three glasses were procured from the cupboard and set next to the jug of barley tea. Naruto asked for a glass of water, he didn't really like the aftertaste the tea had. Not that he didn't like tea, Hon-san made some great tea, he just didn't like this tea. Really he was too distracted by the glowing shelf to pay attention right now. It was so inviting.

"Oh, did I mention that after the sun sets, you two are not to leave the apartment."

"What!" Naruto wanted to cry, "but why? You can't practice jutsu inside."

"Correction, it is not wise to. You most certainly can, it's just a bad idea." Kakashi's eye curved like it was smiling.

"But- but- but-" Naruto sputtered.

There were jutsu there just waiting to be tried. Okay, so he probably wouldn't be able to do most of them, but there must be one that he could do. And it was calling to him. Sasuke looked up from the empty cabinet that he was making a big show about staring into. "You know, you can look at them if you want. Heck, have one if you think it would be helpful." Sasuke shrugged - Gai would probably have called it "hip" - and opened the next door.

Naruto nearly squealed like a little girl as he leapt for the shelf, as it turned out it sounded more like a shrieking pig. Naruto flew through the air light as a feather, the glowing shelf was pulling him, just like how he was pulled down to the ground. His hand soon rested on one of the glorious scrolls of Knowledge. He paused for a second, it seemed an eternity, as he let the anticipation build. He was about to learn something! With beautiful grace and flourish Naruto unrolled the scroll and began to read.

_ScribbleScribbleScribbleScri bble_

_ScribbleScribbleScribbleScri bbleScribbleScribble_

_ScribbleScribble_

_ScribbleScribbleScribbleScri bbleScribble_

_ScribbleScribbleScribbleScri bbleScribbleScribbleScribble Scribble_

_ScribbleScribbleScribbleScri bbleScribbleScribbleScribble ScribbleScribbleScribbleScri bbleScribble_

_ScribbleScribble_

_Scribble..._

"Oh, did I mention you need an active Sharingan to read them?" Sasuke smiled wickedly as Naruto dropped to his knees in a silent scream.

"Hmmm. Pranked the Pranker. I like it."

Why? Why? There was knowledge there! Sasuke had led him on! That jerk! That insensitive ugly wannabe-genius loverboy pansy miserable little book-hating scroll-tearing prank-stopping bowl of under-seasoned soup with a side of cardboard dango pokey-losing snack-sitting girl-stealing Tora-loving Ramen-cursing dull-kunai pain-in-the-neck future-porn-reading stuck-up snuck-in suck-up abysmal buttonholing cobblestone dog, effeminate freak, good-for-nothing, hypocritical insolent junior killing llama, mirthless noodle, over-the-counter poop, quintessential reclusive stupid terribly unpleasant vermin, wuss, xanthosis-covered yellow zoo-animal!

It would have taken a plot-blind moron to not notice killing intent radiating off of Naruto. Kakashi didn't know if it was on purpose or just some kind of subconscious reaction but Sasuke added his own dark aura of chilling killing intent. He weighed his options, if his students killed each other, how much trouble would he get in? Really, if two kids developed a lifelong lust for each others blood, usually the first thing people did was go to the teacher that was supposed to inspire teamwork and love in his charges. Who would they send to kill him first? Maybe Sakura... as long as she didn't get any training from say Tsunade, Kakashi figured he could live another three years after the map altering battle that would come.

"Alright, alright." Kakashi decided to add in his own killing intent - that more than likely was a joke - just to scare them. Except it didn't work that well, in response to the highly developed killing intent that Kakashi exuded the boys turned their output up to maximum. There was frost on the windows and the fridge shut off. Kakashi was frozen. The Copy-Ninja knew then and there that his name would one day be immortal as the teacher of these two. For good or for evil, Kakashi didn't know, he just hoped there was still a Land of Fire after this.

Somehow, miraculously, the two had settled down and were even friendly. Naruto was laughing as he retold the stories of some of his more extravagant pranks. Sasuke wasn't laughing, but he seemed to be enjoying the stories nonetheless, his body language was a dead give away. The boy might be good at hiding it, maybe the best in his generations - well aside from any Hyuuga and Aburame, but to Kakashi it was still blatantly obvious.

"So," Naruto finally asked, "where do I sleep?"

"The floor."

"You're kidding, right?" Naruto smiled and took another bite of his pizza.

"No, I'm not. You can sleep on the floor." Sasuke snapped as he picked up the paper plates and tossed them into the trash bin. (Footnote 2)

"I am not sleeping on the floor."

"To bad. You are."

"Then I am out of here." Naruto made his way to the common exit for Ninjas - the window. But almost as soon as it was open he was face to mask with a very unfriendly presence. "Well hello ANBU-san. That is a nice kunai you got there. Why is it pointed at me?"

"You are not to leave this apartment." Naruto turned back to Kakashi who was grinning from one side of his eye to the other. Naruto suddenly thought back to his idea the other day. Maybe if it was a new book that he slathered in fangless venom. Sure, someone else might get it, but really how many other people read porn in the village? Naruto wasn't sure he wanted that question answered. There was something he just remembered about the Land of Fire's list of exports, number 89 was Cheap Adult Novels. Anyway, what if a couple sorry leechers died, if Kakashi was amongst them Naruto had done his service to the world.

"Naruto, imagine the village with just Gai, and a whole bunch of twelve year olds" Kakashi pointed out. Sometimes Naruto really hated having an overactive imagination... and a mind reading sensei. There was so much wrong with that world. So much wrong. So much wrong. Naruto slowly closed the window and sat on the floor. He was trying so hard to get that thought out of his head. It was killing brain cells left and right, it was a massacre. So many dying brain cells, it was as if a million billion neurons cried out as one and then were silenced.

"Rest in peace, sanity."

"Oh, no! You are not going to lose it in my house!"

"I'll lose it wherever I freakin lose it. It's not your job to tell me where I can end my life as a sane man and go mad."

"It is when you are in my house."

"You mean apartment?"

"Apartment, whatever! Still you are not allowed to go mad here." Sasuke jabbed his finger down to prove his point.

"Okay, so I'll go mad over here."

"Oh no you won't!" Sasuke leapt at Naruto. The motion was so fast Naruto didn't even have time to see it. One second he was standing the next second he was laying on the ground with yet another kunai pointed at his neck. Now Naruto's taijutsu skills were _years_ bellow Sasuke's, he knew that. However this wasn't really sparing, it wasn't even really fighting actually. It was more like rolling on the ground trying to get on top of the other person. The only thing that could have made it even more compromising was if they were wearing spandex, or even worse Anko grade fish net.

After several exerting minutes (footnote 4) the pair of them stopped and looked up. Kakashi was gone. In his seat sat a kindly little note, complete with fancy signature and an - apparently - smiling self-portrait. Naruto was never going to be a sensor, he had figured this out several weeks ago. Trying to feel the almost magnetic pull of others chakra's upon his own was a little hard when the whole time he was being exposed to (likely) lethal doses of demonic chakra from inside his own body. It was kind of like looking for candles from the inside of a sun. However, he guessed there were still ANBU hidden outside the window. Naruto turned to Sasuke, "Through the ceiling?"

"Through the ceiling." Sasuke nodded. For as common a trick as ceiling-hiding should have been it was never actually covered in the academy. (Footnote 5) So neither dead-last Naruto, nor genius Sasuke, knew how to get into the ceiling. Well they could chakra hop, but that would probably end with them on the next floor up, with a broken necks.

"Here," Naruto pointed to one of the looser looking ceiling tiles, "Let me stand on your shoulders so I can get out."

"Heck no!"

"Do you want me out of your house or what?"

"You mean apartment?"

"Apartment, whatever! Give me a boost!"

"Fine, just try not to step on my face."

Naruto was extra careful to step on the Uchiha's face as he climbed up onto his shoulders. As it turned out, standing on the shoulders of another living being - especially a twelve year old boy - was not the easiest thing in the world. Naruto started to fall backwards, but while he was adjusting his weight, so was Sasuke. The overcompensation sent them headed to meet the ground from the other direction. Naruto jerked back trying to avoid face planting and grabbed ahold of one of the beams holding up the ceiling. Hanging on literally by his fingernails Naruto scrambled for something to put his weight on... which by a happy coincidence happened to be Sasuke's face.

"Hey, cut that out!"

"Help me, I am going to fall!" Naruto shouted, his fingernails were starting to make deep gouges in the wood. Rolling his eyes, Sasuke grabbed Naruto's ankles long enough for him to push aside one of the light wooden ceiling panels and grab ahold of the top side of the beam. When Naruto pulled himself up, the first thing he noticed was it was a lot lighter up in the ceiling than he had expected. The second thing he noticed was the pair of old ladies playing poker next to several small surveillance seals. The third thing Naruto noticed was the Penguin-masked ANBU hovering next to him.

The old ladies stopped and stared at Naruto. One of them put a finger to their crusty old mouth while the other one reached into a sack and handed Naruto a coupon for two free bowls of Ramen at Ichiraku's. Immediately Naruto's brain was divided against itself. On the one hand there was ramen involved, on the other hand it was coming from an old lady, and old lady equals evil lady - Naruto's hand remembered. But there was ramen! _Wait, _a third more rational voice said, _you have the advantage here, they won't try tricking you incase you rat them out. Conclusion, take the Ramen._ Naruto took the slip of paper and stuffed it up his sleeve. When did the voices in his head start talking like this? Was it before the clone accident or after? Naruto wasn't sure.

Finally he turned to Penguin. "You guys are in the floor too, aren't you?" Penguin-san stayed silent. "And Cock-eye-sensei is waiting outside the front door. And you're all on a rotation with one last guy who's sleeping right now. Right?" Penguin-san said nothing. Naruto nodded and pulled the ceiling panel toward him. "You want to put this back for me?" The ANBU grabbed a hold of the panel and nodded. Naruto dropped back down into the room.

"Sasuke, you don't walk around in this room without any clothes on, do you?"

Sasuke looked confused, "No, why did you think of that in the ceiling?"

"Oh, there was just an ANBU up there and it made me think that it would be really freaky if you didn't wear clothes at all times." Sasuke scrunched up his face to show his distaste for the whole conversation. The both of them paused and looked toward the bathroom. "That thought-"

"Will never leave my mouth." Sasuke affirmed.

Naruto plopped himself down in front of the window and stared out. Thoughts swirled around in his head, he wished he had his seal making equipment. These in between moments were such a drag without them. One thought sat heavily in Naruto's mind, Sasuke. When Radio worked on "skills training," information gathering was one of his favorites. Of course targeted recon was just a fancy way of saying stalking. The point was, Naruto knew almost as much about Sasuke as Kakashi did (which honestly probably wasn't all that much). Naruto knew that Sasuke practiced almost every waking minute, he could hit a target a hundred meters away ninety-seven out of a hundred times (two of them bounced off because there was no more room on the target, the last hit a bird), he had the strength the tear limbs off a tree, Sasuke had perfected four mid-level chakra control exercises, knew at least 15 fire-element jutsu, and many more elementless, he could run faster than Naruto could follow, his sensory skills could pick Naruto up from at least fifty meters away (though how important that was, was still debatable) and could dodge like nobody's business. Naruto didn't just feel like dead last, he wasn't even on the map when compared to Sasuke. It made him wonder, what was driving him? Why? Why did Sasuke look so pained when he practiced?

"Hey, dweeb. You okay?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because when you're quiet, I get worried you're planning something."

Naruto stuck his tongue out to let Sasuke know what he thought of that. Sasuke returned the gesture. And for a little while there was silence in the room.

"Hey, dweeb."

"What? Duck-butt?"

"How do you do all those seals?" Sasuke suddenly found something on the wall very interesting and turned to stare at it.

"You mean: how do I make all those seals? It's not that hard. I'm sure a genius like you could figure it out."

"Yeah, maybe if I had someone to teach me. If you haven't noticed, sealmasters are kind of a hard thing to find and they don't just go around giving away their secrets."

"You don't know how to make seals? But you have one over there on that box." Naruto pointed to the heavy wooden chest that took up one corner of the room. Running around the top was a complex locking seal.

"Yeah, it locks the box and sometimes I can unlock it. A real seal master, am I."

Naruto shrugged. "Why do you want to learn fuuinjutsu anyway? I mean you've got all those jutsu scrolls and..." Sasuke wasn't reacting at all. Naruto had expected something, twitching, growling, killing intent, something. He had been counting on it. Not this, this emotionless powerful painful silence. "Ehhh, okay. Sasuke, you want to learn some seal-making basics?" Naruto asked as the silence stretched on. The silence turned from painful to awkward.

"Yes."

"But... First you have to do something for me."

"What? This better not be anything stupid."

"Oh, no. No. I don't think it is stupid at all."

"Pft. Like you're a fair judge."

"You just have to admit that I'm better than you."

"Fine, you're better than me at fuuinjutsu."

"No, no, no. That's not what I said. I said you have to admit that I'm better than you. Not at fuuinjutsu, just better." Sasuke growled. His eyes leaped around the room, the shelf of unreadable scrolls on the wall, the locked box on the far side of the room, the weapon lined up neatly upon a shelf, the large ornamental fan on the wall next to the large futa shuriken, a half finished box of Cup-Ramen. Finally Sasuke turned to the blond sealmaster-in-the-making.

"Fine... you are better than me."

"Okay then! Let's get started. Do you have some paper? And a brush? And we'll need some ink." Naruto leapt up reinvigorated. He had given up trying to teach people about seal making after that day at the academy. Nobody wanted to listen, so he had given up, but apparently there was still some part of him that wanted to share it - his ego yes, but some other part too.

"So all seals are made of two components," Naruto began as he sat down at the table. Laid in front of him were several sheets of paper, an almost unused brush, an ink bottle, and a brush pad. It wasn't very good quality ink, or paper, or brush, but for basics it would suit just fine. "Content," He said drawing the simple character for 'seal' "and Intent." Holding up two fingers he activated the super-basic seal before him. "Go ahead try and lift it."

Naruto smiled at Sasuke tried to pry the paper off the table. He knew that Sasuke wouldn't be able to get a fingernail under it. After about a minute Naruto released the seal and the paper slid off the table. "Content is what makes the seal understandable, it controls what the chakra does. The intent - what isn't written - divines the result of the seal. Seal-making is about a balance between the two, this is important in seal breaking too. If a seal is made up of mostly content you can "shatter" it so to say by trying to change the intent, vise versa a seal made from mostly intent can be "broken" by countermanding how it controls the chakra.

"The first seal ever made - dated long before the discovery of chakra and the creation of the ninja world order - is attributed to a band of monks who specializes in exorcisms. They were, at the time, unknowingly using chakra to remove the demons. However, they ran into the problem of when a demon was exercised it could just find a new host. After about a century of running around doing only a little good, they decided they needed some way to keep the demons locked up - duhhh. So one monk with the fancy pants name 'where deer dance and water sings' worked out a ritual that makes use of the oldest seal known - the Fuumaru." Naruto picked up the paper that was on the floor and carefully drew a smooth circle around the character "seal."

"It's an incredibly simple seal, essentially meant to lock something in a container for all eternity. Of course it wouldn't stand up to anything today, but to a culture that had no idea about chakra energy - even the demons that used it - it seemed sufficient for the task.

"Anyway the real trick in making seals is learning to make the perfect balance between 'programing' and 'projecting' - more technical terms that really don't mean much. You following me?"

Sasuke picked up the Fuumaru seal off the table and looked at it, a little disappointed. "You mean," he grumbled, "all that stuff you do is just for locking boxes? But what about explosive tags, and storage seals, and barriers, and all the other things?"

"Not exactly, the very first seals were for locking, but fuuinjutsu encompasses those other, more fun things too. Fuuinjutsu really is kind of a misnomer, but it has been around long enough that no one feels like changing it. Things like explosive tags, space-time storage, barriers, reconnaissance seals, even things like summoning and teleportation are just taking the basics up about a bajillion levels. Things like that require huge amounts of time and meticulous crafting to get the programming to work with the projection. But even more than that, seals can actually be used to do so much more... well really anything. If you have enough genius you can actually replicate jutsu using Fuuinjutsu. I mean there are Seeking Seals and Battle Seals and Seal Seals and Counter Seals and Interrogation Seals and Hunting Seals and Trap Seals, even things like Redressing Seals." Naruto trailed off. Naruto froze stiff. Slowly, evilly, a smile began work its way across his face. "You know it's almost too bad that Fuuinjutsu has gone down as a misplaced footnote in history (Footnote 3)"

"I don't like that smile Naruto. What are you - you know what I don't want to know." Sasuke shook his head violently trying to get the infectiously stupid grin out of his head. Something on the table caught his attention, a note.

_Stay quiet. They are listening. You want to do something really really fun?_

Sasuke looked at the note. Sasuke looked at Naruto. Sasuke looked at the note. He turned around and started to walk toward the bathroom. Naruto was not going to suck him into one of his hair-brained wild insane involved memorable famous hilarious... The doorknob was in his hand, he could just turn it now and open the door and the night would stay forgettable. He would never know what Naruto wanted. The lives of many many people would remain normal a day longer, he would be doing them a service. This was the gate of Naruto's insanity, Sasuke knew it. He just needed to open the door...

Sasuke sighed as he looked down at the paper, in his own handwriting was the word: _What?_

_You know Gai-sensei?_

_The freaky-ass man with green spandex that runs by my house at five forty-two every morning?_

_Yeah him. What do you think Kakashi would look like dressed up like him?_

Sasuke's thoughts stopped. He froze as the idea washed over him. And slowly, evilly, a grin began to work its way across his face. He knew the insanity was taking over, but that image, it was like a virus in his mind. It took over one thought and turned into a factory, soon it was the only thing he could think about - he had to make it happen.

_How?_

_Kabuki Seal: Costume Change. We'll need a copy from the library, a copy of Gai-sensei's outfit in Kakashi's size - and sleeping gas._ Naruto crossed out the last part as they heard a loud, definitely real, snore come from outside the front door.

_Okay, but two questions, one: where are we going to get a body suit in Kakashi's size, and two: how are we going to get this stuff. We're locked in here in case you don't remember._

_I'll just get my friends to help._

_You have friends?_

Naruto bristled and walked over to the window. "You ready?" Sasuke shrugged. Bringing his hands together in the unique hand seal for this particular jutsu. Like bugs crawling just underneath his conscious mind Naruto could feel the others trying desperately to get loose again. Hardly had he begun to mold the chakra when the others grabbed ahold and created themselves as Shadow Clones. On the other side of the window. Outside the apartment. The ANBU were on them like Anko on Dango. However years and years of practice fleeing from the ANBU paid off. In seconds, the building was no longer under surveillance - the ANBU following a higher directive to kill Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho on sight.

"I can't believe that worked."

"Come on let's go. I have no idea how long those three can hold them off." No sooner had Naruto opened the window then the quiet buzzing of his near perpetual headache began again. But he couldn't focus on that now, he had bigger and better things to do this night, like playing dress up with his despicable teacher.

"Ahh, Naruto, your house is this way."

"Oh, hehe, right."

Silently a man slipped out of the shadows ready to leap when a target approached

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"What I can't believe," Deadpan said as he reached the apex of another chakra enhanced leap, "is why you of all people - even though we're not really people - are willing to go along with our original's plan and be bait. I mean I thought for sure you'd just kick him through the wall for the heck of it, window or no window."

Psycho shrugged, "He's causing pain and chaos, I'm willing to delay my personal enjoyment for a greater cause. Plus I charge interest."

Deadpan cringed. He couldn't imagine what kind of experience Naruto was in for once he summoned them again. "Just don't kill him." He warned.

Psycho waved him off, "Oh no. I wouldn't kill him, that would be no fun."

"Hey speaking of fun, you know what else is fun? Teddy Bears!" Crazy pointed to the incoming ANBU decked out in a surprisingly cute bear mask. The clones came down and sprang like a fountain in three different directions - Crazy did a flip just to be different.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So what again are we looking for?" Sasuke stood guard by the door, practice kunai at the ready. It might not have been sharp, but it could still bruise someone pretty bad. He didn't like this the street was to narrow, the building too high. It would take too much time for them to get out of here if they were caught. And Naruto was just fumbling around with the super-duper sized scroll.

"I told you, Kabuki Seal: Costume Change. Hon-san made it for several theater productions that needed quick costume changes. You know he's gotten some really weird commissions over the years," He looked up from the large scroll, "I mean that's mostly because seals can be used whether you really understand how to mold chakra or not, but the other big reason is that the only way to make a truly perpetual or even really long lasting jutsu is through Fuuinjutsu."

"Naruto! Keep looking!"

"Oh, right. Here we go!" A puff of thin white smoke signaled the summoning of the scroll through the library scroll.

"Are you sure it's okay to take this?" Sasuke looked at the fairly non-descript scroll that Naruto handed him. The blonde shrugged, "If he knew we were using it to dress Cock-eye-sensei like Spandex-sensei I think he would approve."

"Really?"

"Well he wouldn't disapprove. He doesn't disapprove most of my pranks, as long as they don't involve him."

"Really?"

"Yeah, lets go."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Okay, plans anyone?" Deadpan asked as the three ANBU began to close in. Logically the forth one would be hiding somewhere that controlled the sky. The clones had be cornered in the intersection of three streets they had been running down. Now it seemed like only a matter of time until they were caught.

"Beat them to a pulp?"

"More constructive plans, Psycho." Deadpan said easily dodging the half hearted swing to his head.

"Meh, I'm not much of a planning person. I like to act. You know what act sounds like, attack. Which I think is the perfect plan. Lets attack you pansy."

"Oh, no. I'm all for violence. But let's be smart about our violence, we can't help him spread discord and chaos if we don't exist."

"Ooooh, good point."

"We could become blunt objects of pain and then let Psycho attack?" Crazy chimed in. The ANBU were now very close indeed, maybe only two arms lengths away now.

"That is insane, Crazy. How the heck are we supposed to become -" Poof!

Psycho raised an eyebrow and turned around, "Become poof? What the heck is poof?" It paused to look at the whiskered frying pan on the ground with blue-gray eyes. "Deadpan?"

"Shut up."

Penguin-san took immediate advantage of the opening Psycho left as it bent down to pick up the suddenly transformed clone. Unfortunately for the poor ANBU Psycho was made of reaction - well reaction, strength, raw talent, and other lovely things.

"It's the bottom of the ninth, two outs and the bases are loaded," Crazy began to narrate as the frypan neared the Penguin mask. "And it's going, going, GONE! HOME RUN HOME RUN! THE CLONES WIN THE WORLD SERIES!"

"Hey, Deadpan, I think we finally found something you are useful for." Psycho smiled as it tossed him up and caught him by the handle. "Alright! who's next?"

"Did you just kill a Ninja of the Hidden Leaf?" Teddy Bear-san asked.

"I don't think so." Crazy pointed down the street to the far end where the front window of a bed shop had just been opened by Penguin-san. "He looks fine to me." The ANBU crawled out of the window, covered in feathers. "And kind of like a penguin."

"Again, who's next?" Psycho brandished its fellow clone turned frying pan.

The man hiding in the alleyway behind a butchers shop decided that this whole thing was one big act and decided to move on. Really, did Konoha think they could fool him like this? No twelve year old could make clones that did that. Did Konoha think they were stupid?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Why?"

Naruto shrugged and pulled the spandex suit from out of the dresser on the street. "I don't know. Most people are afraid to touch the stuff. I can kinda see why now too, it feels like the stuff is trying to eat me."

"No, why is there a dresser full of Kakashi-fitted Gai-suits sitting in front of his house?"

"I just answered that, no one is going to steal it with all this stuff in it. I mean if they don't want to touch, it why would they want a dresser that's been infested with it for the past twenty years."

"But why is there the necessity for it in the first place?" Sasuke was almost screaming. The insanity was finally getting to him. He almost didn't care anymore, there had to be some logical reason for a dresser full of spandex to be sitting outside his teachers home.

"Would you keep this stuff inside your house if you were Cock-eye-sensei?"

"No. But why does he even have the spandex?!." Not that Sasuke had much respect for his teacher to begin with, and what little there was came from being the awesome ninja that he was, but even that was about to be shattered if Sasuke discovered that he went around wearing green spandex when Sasuke wasn't watching.

"Because." Naruto turned around in the most melodramatic motion Sasuke had ever seen. "Gai gives Kakashi one every Christmas, hoping that one day his beloved friend will join him in a sweaty brotherly full force training session... or have really creepy man love with him. You pick."

"..."

"..."

"MY BRAIN!" Sasuke collapsed to the ground screeching in pain.

"Your brain? Your brain? Think about my brain when I discovered Anko's secret stash of comic books written on the subject. It was awful!"

"YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA g!" Sasuke felt the irresistible urge to find broaches and stab out his eyes. (Footnote 7 and 8) "You, you son of a demon, you did this to me!"

"Not too far off, but from my perspective it's pretty dang funny." Naruto stuffed the last of the spandex bodysuit into the sack he had found next to the note on the dresser saying _please take one. _"Now come on, my clones may be able to make a pretty good distraction, but after a scream like that people might think something like: the Kyuubi has returned."

As they leaped off, the man hiding behind the dresser slowly allowed himself to fall to the ground sobbing. Crying for the brain cells that had died that night.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"I can't tell, are you a magic staff or a candy cane?" Psycho looked over Crazy's weapon transformation.

"Both."

"Sweet."

"Want to taste?"

Psycho looked at Crazy like he was, well, crazy. A dark figure leaped up onto the roof across the street. He didn't look exactly like an ANBU, the most obvious thing being the lack of a cloak, but hey, Psycho rationalized, anybody out this late doing suspicious things was fair game in the game of pain. Plus it needed a way to get rid of Crazy conveniently.

Psycho smiled, "Headshot."

0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o00o0o

"And, just to be safe, you do have sleeping gas at your house right?" Naruto asked as he jumped over yet another alleyway on the way back to Sasuke's apartment.

"No! Why would I have sleeping gas at my house?" Sasuke was still trying to put his brain back in order, thankfully his sense of balance had long ago been automated, otherwise he would have had a great deal of trouble getting back home.

"I don't know, I thought it was just something everybody kept in their house. I mean Anko has it."

"Yeah well, Anko's not normal."

"But she's always swearing she is normal. Why would she lie?"

"Naruto," Sasuke shook his head, this was the longest he had ever talked with Naruto face to face - yes his brain hurt like hell - and it was actually fun. But jeez Naruto needed to be around more normal people. This Hon-san seemed to be the origin of all Naruto's long winded explanations and tangential rants, and while Anko probably couldn't be blamed for everything, she certainly wasn't helping. Sasuke continued: "Anyone who has to tell you they are normal, are usually anything but."

"Oh." Naruto paused to think about that.

"Where are you going Naruto, my house is this way. You're really awful with directions aren't you?"

"Not normally its just this headache." Naruto explained as they jumped to the next rooftop. Below them a man swore in the shadows.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0

"I don't know uuh where you got those nice err toys, or where your aahh friend went but," the huge man cracked his knuckles menacingly, "but I am going to mmm enjoy eeeh repaying you for killing my - my - my uhhh, brainnnnn cells."

"I don't know what you are talking about. My friends are right here." Crazy smiled holding up the frying pan. "Deadpan."

"You know it is too bad that more neurons didn't meet their demise, only a couple more and you could have applied for workman's compensation. They do have that in your village, right?"

"And now meet Psycho." Crazy said holding up his transformed companion, a terrifying blade of sharp and deadly steel burned black as death, around it hung an aura of pain and despair that could have chilled the hearts of demons and froze the blood of men, it's cut was cruelty in geometry and its edge was violence in corporeal form, and at the bottom there was a small pink ribbon fluttering in the wind.

"I think we can solve that problem for you though. A good whack upside the head, and maybe a cut or two should be enough for anybody to consider you disabled."

Yet for some reason the man grinned. "Yes real fun."

And when Deadpan's skull puffed out of his hand, the man frowned.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Okay the coast is clear, dumb-butt." Sasuke gestured Naruto to finish coming up the stairs. Sasuke had figured that Kakashi had already put an alert trap on the door so coming at him from that direction was a no go.

"Thank you duck-butt." They stayed there looking at their teacher who was resting against the wall next to Sasuke's door. "Jeez he is lazy. Ya think he is related to Shikamaru?" Sasuke looked at Naruto like he was insane, which he probably believed at the moment. "What, I'm just say'n. Then again before tonight I would have thought you were related to Neji-teme - now there is a guy with a stick up his butt, I bet if he ever smiled you could see it. And I would have called Anko a fairly normal woman. It's a good thing she can't hear me right now."

Sasuke nodded.

"Alright hand me the spandex." Poof, it disappeared. "Now the leg warmers and weights" A puff and they too vanished. "I also brought some black hair dye from home, that is part of what took me so long." Naruto showed Sasuke the small bottle. "And last but not least an image of Gai." Naruto held the seal up to his forehead and concentrated. "We should be good to go."

"Okay, so how do we get this seal to work on him."

"Oh, that's easy. We just need to specify him as the intended target." Naruto held out the unopened scroll so that it pointed at Kakashi. Then, with a precise and practiced movement (Footnote 9) the scroll turned perpendicular, a finger slid under the paper seal keeping the scroll closed and held the leading edge of the paper tight against his other finger. Naruto's arm pulled back until the scroll hovered at his waist and then shot forward again. At the very last second, just before his arm reached its full extent, Naruto flicked his wrist sending the scroll in a long high arc as it unraveled.

The seal was fairly long, so much so that it flew over Cock-eye-sensei side before the paper caught and it stopped flying. Then a puff of smoke as the seal activated. When the smoke faded there was no Kakashi. Sasuke's eyes flew wide and he began to turn to Naruto.

"What are you two doing out at this time?"

Naruto shook his head, trying to communicate to Sasuke not to look back. "Why nothing Cock-eye-sensei. We'll just go in now."

"Good idea."

As soon as the door closed. Sasuke turned around and initiated a silent eye conversation. (Naruto felt like there was another name for something like this, maybe it rhymed with earl mock?)

"_What happened" _He said with wide eyes a snarl and a raised eyebrow.

"_Oh no it worked." _Naruto replied, shaking his head and then curtly nodded it. "We'll just have to wait for tomorrow."

"Fine."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

When Kakashi heard the loud puff that Hon had warned him about at approximately five thirty he got up dusted, himself off and walked into the apartment. The apartment was still there nothing, was broken, no ashes, no sulfur fumes, no smoke, in fact it looked a little cleaner than the last time he was in it. The only indication any hyperactive blond was in here was a couple of papers in the wastebasket with a simple seal on them.

He walked toward the window - exit - and left the apartment the way he had found it: in one piece. He dropped down to the ground and walked off toward his house. Swept away in his literature Kakashi failed to hear the hacking spitting screeching noise that came from the first floor apartment belonging to Anko Mitarashi.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"You, my friend, are a monster." Naruto moaned as his body tried to kill him for yet another morning workout. On the one hand, he had grabbed Sasuke as he puffed out into the training field, though apparently Hon-san had expected that and packed a spare set of the Uchiha's clothes in the transfer program. Naruto had kind of expected Sasuke to be, you know, deadish.

But noooo, he actually made them run FASTER. Ramen drag it, Ramen drag it to Shibuya.

"You do that every morning?" Sasuke actually sounded a bit amazed, and only slightly winded.

"Not that! I'm sorry I like to keep my running speeds below thirty miles an hour, thank you very much."

"No wonder you're so slow." Sasuke grinned.

"Oh, hey wanna go?! You wanna go?! Let's go!"

"Yeah I want to go. But maybe when you can stand."

"You know what?" Naruto wheezed, any energy he had regained from the exercise was rapidly draining, "You can shut up."

"Hey, who is that Naruto?" Sasuke pointed to a woman seemingly frozen stiff.

"Uhh, looks like Kurenai-sensei. What's wrong with her, it's like she's frozen stiff."

"Yes, I think that much is obvious. But why? Wait, you think..." Sasuke trailed off as he saw the grin spreading across Naruto's face. That stupid infectious grin was starting to pry at his own lips. NO! Sasuke Uchiha would not let him get drawn back into the insanity. He had to fight it. Sasuke steeled his lips and thought of things that kept him from going mad, like getting mad, like blood, like... Suddenly the grin was gone, only coldness in his heart, and silently Sasuke began to despise the fun he had last night. At least he had managed to learn a few things about Fuuinjutsu.

0o00o0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0o

It was kind of an off day for Penguin-san the ANBU. First he hadn't slept a wink last night, then he looked like a chicken. At least he could console himself knowing it was almost over and he could get some sleep. He was just turning the corner to his disengagement point for the week when he caught sight of something. And then his brain shut down.

It was kind of an off day for Penguin-san the ANBU.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Today, Sakura knew, somehow she just knew, was going to be different. She wondered exactly when things had gone wrong. She had woken up to her very annoying alarm and tumbled out of bed, that was normal. She had gone to the toilet, washed her hands and brushed her teeth, again, that was normal. The breakfast she ate was normal. She had looked at the picture of Sasuke and walked out the door and took the same route as always. That was normal. Yelling at Ino, watching a parade, dodging a chance encounter with a small child related to the Hokage, not everyday events but normal nonetheless.

Maybe it was those chunin that had tipped her off, it wasn't everyday she got to see someone spew breakfast like a jutsu. Heimlich no jutsu, she remembered it from the academy. Yes, it must have been them, or at least there where the weirdness began.

Then came the frozen people. They were just standing in the middle of the road, all over. They had these blank stares (Footnote 10) that seemed to go on to infinity. Sakura had poked one of them, just to make sure that this wasn't some sculptures marketing ploy, but no they were real flesh and blood humans. And funny thing, but having a small percentage of the village populous stuck in the middle of the road like statues had a ripple effect on the whole industry of the town. As the morning traffic grew so did the number of accidents.

Overturned carts, stray chickens, rampaging frogs, pedestrian back ups, civilians trying to take the ninja-upper-level-walkways (rooftops), cats chasing chickens, the occasional pig, seeing Ino three times on her morning walk, dogs chasing cats chasing chickens, an impromptu lynching, poker games on top of overturned carts, men chasing cats chasing chickens, old ladies bickering, wives chasing men chasing cats chasing chickens, children taking advantage of the chaos to pull pranks like catching chickens, chickens taking advantage of chaos to pull pranks like catching children, wives chasing men chasing dogs chasing cats chasing chickens chasing children chasing wives chasing men chasing cats chasing dogs casing wives chasing children chasing chickens chasing dogs chasing men... and ramen. It had been a long walk to the bridge.

Her head was already developing an annoying headache and she hadn't even been around Naruto for a second. Somehow she figured this was all his fault anyway. Well at least she could blame the idiot for part of her headache even if she couldn't find a way to blame him for it all. That kid had the loudest laugh in the entire village. She could hear his characteristic bark long before she could see him. But when he came around the corner and approached the bridge her strange-o-meter clicked up another notch. Walking next to the subject of her ire was the target of her infatuation. Naruto was barely managing to walk, trying to fight through his gut busting laugh, and Sasuke was (begrudgingly) smiling along with him. "Did you- ha ha - did you see the look on that dog's face when - when - he saw the chicken caring the cat came flying at him? It was priceless. I have never seen a dog say "oh crap" more clearly in my life."

"Hi Sakura" he managed to wheeze as he plopped himself down next to her. She backed up toward Sasuke who had taken to leaning against a closer post than normal.

"What is wrong with you? What is wrong with everybody!" She nearly screamed at Naruto.

"Oh don't mind me." Naruto huffed, then jerked violently as the big brother of all hiccups wracked his lungs. "I'll be fine in a moment, tehehe."

"Yeah, you got to save passing out for later." Sasuke sneered.

"I know." Naruto nearly squealed. He looked like some kind of ugly-butt five year old at Christmas. "This is going to be so great! Do you think that he's noticed yet?"

Sasuke shook his head and looked down the street, just in time to catch a stampede of watermelons crossing a ways down. "Judging from the amount of chaos, I would say no."

"What is going on here?!"

"You'll find out, Sakura." Sasuke looked over at Naruto and their eyes met. Sasuke tensed a little and looked down the street the other way.

As time passed, the pair only acted stranger and stranger. Really they were supposed to meet Kakashi-sensei here at eight, but he never, never showed up until at least nine forty-five. Yet for some reason he always knew if they were late. Sakura hated it. If their sensei wasn't going to show up then why should she. Today was definitely different. First off the boys smelled sweaty already - yelch - second Naruto hadn't pulled out any seal making stuff from anywhere yet, and third the boys were just acting weird! Her beloved Sasuke had pulled his face into some kind of stone-like mask and he was breathing very heavily through his nose. Naruto was sitting on his heals rocking back and forth giggling quietly.

"Sasuke-kun, are you ill?"

"Nope, just fine."

"You sure?"

"Yep."

"Hey Sakura-chan? When Cock-eye-sensei gets here, can you get him to read this out loud?" Naruto sounded like he was badly constipated.

"Why? Can't you do it?"

Naruto shook his head, "I don't think either of us are gonna be able to."

"What is going on-" Sakura stopped mid-thought. The electric charge was literally frozen halfway between the neurons when her brain shut down. Kakashi-sensei had arrived. Well at least she knew what was going on now. She could totally understand the reactions of both her teammates. Sasuke went kind of stiff and very very still. Naruto was a ball of motion on the ground gasping for air. "Air! Air!" he kept screaming in vain. Her hand on auto pilot reached out and presented Kakashi with the slip of paper.

"What's this? Burn bright the power of youth? Youth? Fist pump?" He read aloud mimicking the gesture at the end. Naruto was turning a tremendous shade of purple as he slammed the ground with his fist. Sasuke had bypassed red took a highway through purple and was coming into blue at this point. He was sweating profusely just trying to keep his face steady

"What's wrong with him?" Kakashi-sensei nodded toward the cerulean colored last Uchiha.

"HE CAN'T BREATHE!" Naruto half yelled half gasped as he flopped like a fish out of water.

"Sakura?"

"Kakashi-sensei."

And that proved to be the breaking point. There was this kind of crackling noise from Sasuke's direction as he collapsed to the ground. Simultaneously, Naruto abruptly stopped moving.

"They're not breathing. At all." Kakashi concluded as he checked Sasuke a second time. "I think we should take them to a hospital." Sakura nodded to the extremely awful bowl-cut-dye-job.

0o0o0o0o0o00o0o

Hon reached out and drew another measure of energy from the vast reserves stored within the heavy crystal ball. Using the retrieved energy he took the nutrients and chemicals stored within the Seal of the Day: Burning Both Ends of the Candle and spread them through his body. He felt fresh again, like he had woken up only an hour ago. The effect, unfortunately, would not last much more than a couple wondered how much more time he would need.

Hon didn't know where this urgency was coming from, maybe - as folkloric as it seemed - his bones. They said this had to be finished. Finished soon. But as Hon looked into the light of the pale pink gem he knew it might never be done - at least not in his lifetime, however long that might be.

It was so incredibly ironic that the thing that he had been searching for was in front of him the whole time - only his heart to get in the way. So much potential, so many answers waiting to be uncovered. Every hour, his theory was being reformulated, each test provided new information as valuable as gold. Hon had been swept up by it, engulfed in it. The world could have been destroyed a thousand times over and he wouldn't have heard. Shadow clones, or at least as close as he could replicate, were helping him with their thoughts and conclusions swirling into his mind. It was almost too much for his brain to handle - but for this he would handle everything.

This was it. This was the greatest feeling of all: being right.

He needed to show it to the council as soon as possible, the funding would pass immediately. He would have complete access to everything. He could start a "way" in the name of this project and the village would support it to their end. He could bring in other Librarians, they would flock to him. Hon sat down to begin writing the report, he picked up his brush and then put it down. Reaching out to Seal of the Mirror: My Shadow's Clones, he created another clone to write the report.

Nothing but his heart to get in the way. Senju Hon began to write.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"So wait, you guys had a slumber party without me?" Sakura asked as Naruto led them down a mostly empty street. "What is his house like, Naruto?"

"Oh it's not that bad. Kind of small, but he's got this really huge fan on his wall, and a giant shelf of jutsu scrolls - that I can't read." Naruto stuck his tongue out at the Uchiha genius who visibly tensed for some reason. "But it was actually pretty fun. Which was surprising, I mean I thought you would be some massive bore at home, Sasuke - and you are - but it was still pretty fun. Right?"

Sasuke grumbled. They had just been released from the hospital, there was nothing too serious, just a bit of oxygen deprivation. But Kakashi-sensei had given the rest of the day off anyway. Putting her head in her hand Sakura wondered, "Why did I agree to come along?"

"Because Naruto offered to buy?"

"But why did that convince me?"

"How often does Naruto buy? How often does Naruto agree to go somewhere else besides Ramen?"

"Good point."

"GAAAA THAT IT NO MORE WAIT!" A voice they didn't recognize echoed around them. Before any of the genin could react, a massive hand shot up from beneath the ground and grabbed Naruto's head. A massive muscular arm, shoulder, chest, and man followed fast after it. Sakura and Sasuke didn't even have time to blink when a massive Iwa-nin suddenly stood before them, holding Naruto several feet of the ground by his skull.

"Damn it you brute!" A shrill voice barked, "Don't you have an ounce of brain in your skull?" Team Seven was knocked off their feet by the powerful kick of the ninjas moving too fast to see. "Well come on, we gotta get out of here now!"

Even though his vision was quickly fading Sasuke saw the massive brute of a man put Naruto under his arm like some lifeless doll. Four ninja took off, leaving him on the slippery edge of unconsciousness.

0o0o0o0o000o

Onyx: Well there we go folks that is chapter five of Naruto: the Librarian Chronicles. Beta'ed by XxRazorgazexX.I can tell you the next chapter is going to be one thrill of a ride. So just a bit on how the layout of the stories is going to work from here on out. Don't expect too many of your favorite scenes from the canon - a few of the situations might be the same (for a while) but the events, as you may have already notices, are going to be scrambled - like eggs.

Onyx: So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this christmas present from me. And before we meet today's guest, I would like to ask your opinion on the foot notes, should I continue to include them or skip it and keep with the plot. Let me know.

Onyx: So now for our AFTER CHAPTER SHORTS! Today's guest was first introduced in this chapter and will likely be seen again Penguin-san!

Penguin-san:...

Onyx: Just a second. Author Mode Activate! _Penguin-san slowly came to his senses and found that he was sitting in some weird tv-studio thing. Seated next to him was this incredibly handsome and nerdy man, to whom he felt strangely drawn. It was as if he were a god of some sort._

Penguin-san: What, no I'm not. Where am I, who are you?

Onyx: Ah that's better. I am Onyxmoon, your Authorlord, and you are on the AFTER CHAPTER SHORTS.

Penguin-san: What?

Onyx: So, Pengi, if I can call you that. Tell me, how did you get on the team that was watching Naruto this chapter.

Pengi: Lost a bet.

Onyx: Okay... Why the penguin maske

Pengi: Lost a bet.

Onyx: How did you get your job as an ANBU?

Pengi: Lost a bet.

Onyx: Okay, I can see I'm getting nowhere with this. How about this: what do you think of your new role as ANBU permanently assigned to plot relevant missions.

Pengi: OH hEeeck no! Hey, where'd my kunai go?

Onyx: This may be outside the fourth wall, but I still control ev- hrrggkgk.

Psycho: That is not true. You don't control us, we write ourselves.

Deadpan: It's true, if there was a way, this whole fic would be nothing but us!

Crazy: And footnotes!

Deadpan: Yeah, them too.

Crazy: Oh hey look, Pengi want's to play tag! I WANT TO LOVE YOU! WHY DO YOU RUN!

Deadpan: Because everybody runs from you Crazy, everyone. Anyway, on behalf of our slowly dieing author, thank you dear readers. Please leave your comments, questions, suggestions, opinions in the reviews - Psycho probably won't do anything too drastic unless you incite it. Thankyou!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Footnote 1

Is it me or is there something very wrong with that sentence.

Footnote 2

Naruto had read somewhere that Pizza and Paper Plates actually came into existence at the same time. According to the folk lore in the incredibly small Land of Joiwsey, during a long harsh winter pizza was given to a starving family on a paper plate. For seven months of winter every day a pizza and a stack of paper plates appeared in the forest, for the starving family to eat. When the winter was over and the last drop of snow had melted the gift of pizza stopped. But the family, to thank whatever spirit had fed them built a shrine to pizza and a second shrine to the paper plate. The land grew rich and noisy, and they were all blessed with outrageous accents. The legend states that as long a pizza is cooked in the temple and eaten on paper plates the land would continue to prosper.

That was until the Holy Food Wars. The Land of Joiwsey eventually succumbed to the awesome might of the Legions of Ramen.

Footnote 3

It is actually an interesting sidenote in the annals of history concerning the particular invention of the misplaced footnote. The origins of it were never actually explained but it had been recorded several times in widely diverse areas. Historians could neither guess what exactly it was originally for or why every book has them because they never seemed to be of any real use to anybody and only served to annoy readers. But the simple fact was it seemed that they seemed to as integral to a propor book as pages.

Footnote 4

Done improperly strangeling actually takes a great deal of energy. Especially if the victim was trying to strangle you back.

Footnote 5

The art of getting into and spying from ceilings was actually removed from the standard academy curriculum the year before Uzumaki Naruto entered the fine establishment. The stated reasons on the paperwork that the Hokage signed - under threat of mutiny of half the population of the village (footnote 6) - was that the skill was considered too specialized for the generic education provided by the school. The real reason - as everybody and their uncle knew - was that the blond would have caused even more trouble with such a convenient and useful trick in his arsenal. People were already checking garbage bins, sewer lines, and the occasional large package, they couldn't very well go around checking the ceiling of every room they went into now could they? The cost in time would be tremendous! (On the other hand the labor union of incredibly tall people were all for it - job creation they claimed.)

Footnote 6

Many people wondered how it was possible to threaten mutiny on land. However the brusayer of the street claimed that half the village (including all of the Hyuga - even though they didn't need to worry but loved a good lynching anyway) would bag up the Hokage, put several heavy bricks in the sack, and put him on a boat set for the Great Whirlpool. Sarutobi has never touched so much as a canoe since.

Footnote 7

No one in this universe has be able to discover the origin this particular urge - or what a broach really is. But it is the inevitable sensation that overcomes anyone when they discover something particularly horrifying; like, oh say, finding out that you killed your father married your mother and had kids with her.

Footnote 8

How many of you guys kept reading about for footnote 3? Be honest now.

Footnote 9

It seemed practice because Naruto had practiced, for weeks. Pretty much non-stop if Hon is to be believed. The art of throwing scrolls to activate them is - as one might imagine - not an easy task. One could open it, unroll it, and then throw it, but that would take too much time - and when you are using battle scrolls speed is kind of important. There are other types of scroll papers that are a) more expensive and generally lower quality than the ones Hon likes to use and b) controlled by chakra strips that allow people to control how the scroll moves. But that requires molding chakra, so Hon never really saw the need of purchasing it. So he force Naruto to practice the art of seal throwing while he lectured on the art of seal making.

Becoming a seal master has never been, and will never be an easy thing to do. It is a long and boring road, with explosions! (Hon-san does not approve this message, well the explosions part at least)

Footnote 10

Stares not unlike the locked on, glazed over, drooling states that most of the girls - and Naruto had developed at the academy. The only difference was these people were staring at not the blackboard (in Naruto's case) or Sasuke (in the girls').

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o


	6. Chapter 6

Sasuke's head was reeling. Already the fuzzy black edges were closing in on his doubled vision. Naruto, they had Naruto, he reminded himself. Desperately he reached into a hidden pocket and removed a tube of soldier pills. His head hurt and, at the moment, there was nothing he would have liked more than to pass out. That damn Iwa-nin had sent him flying, and he would pay for that. As his consciousness began to fade Sasuke managed to get a bite of the horribly bitter pill in. Suddenly life was springing back into him - his head still hurt like hell, but at least he could move now.

"Sakura. Sakura!" He called out blearily, until he saw her slumped against the wall a ways farther down, clearly out cold. Stumbling over, Sasuke shoved the rest of his half eaten soldier pill into her mouth and tried to get her to chew. _Come on, come on damn it, Sakura! _Sasuke thought to himself as he waited for her to wake up. He was going to kill them, but they were getting away, soon it would be too late to track them.

"Huh, what happened?" Sakura moaned as she opened her eyes.

"Come on." Sasuke pulled her up roughly, perhaps a bit too quickly because she stumbled forward and almost fell face first into the dust again. She caught herself and looked over at Sasuke, "Where are we going, and why does my head hurt so-"

"We're going after them." Sasuke yelled as he leaped to the rooftop. He knew he was still pretty out of it when he slipped landing. Sakura was worse; she managed to get to rooftop level but almost immediately collapsed. Sasuke didn't have time for this they were getting away! "Come on!" He growled and leaped forward.

"Wait, Sasuke-kun! Who are-" She choked up as she remembered what had just happened. "Naruto!"

"I am going to kill them." The problem was that the ninja they were chasing were much faster than Sakura and already had a good head start. Sasuke wasn't sure how much time he had been out of it, but he could see the shadow of that massive ninja bounding up toward the village wall. Something in Sasuke's brain screamed in pain as he commanded chakra into his legs to push him faster, faster toward the wall. That beast of a man was standing on the edge, and then he plunged into the forest beyond.

Fuzzy blackness began to creep into Sasuke's peripherals, the world was becoming a tunnel and at the end of it was that portion of the wall that the Iwa-nin had stood upon. Vaguely, he heard Sakura behind him telling him to slow down. Vaguely, he was surprised she could keep up. But only vaguely. Those sensations were on the outside of his path, the wall, the rooftops ahead of him, the Iwa-nin, those were on his path; everything else was silenced. The burning in the back of his head faded away and he pushed even more chakra to his legs. One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Sasuke counted the leaps he made from block to block, heading toward the wall.

For Sakura, it was no use. Sasuke was going too fast for her to hold pace. She had only barely managed to keep up with him for the first little ways. There was nothing she could do to keep up with him as he flew - almost literally flew - across the city.

As the distance between Sasuke and her widened, she was overwhelmed with a feeling of... uselessness. Naruto had been captured by these huge ninja - they had come right out of the ground! How was she supposed to do anything! The was nothing she could have done to stop them. They came totally by surprise - one second they were talking and laughing, the next they were under attack. Yet, Sasuke was following them. Sasuke knew what to do, he had made her eat that bitter pill and kept her from falling unconscious. He was rushing after them. He was actually able to do something.

Jumping over a busy shopping street, Sakura spotted something she could do - something that Sasuke couldn't.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Asuma had been wondering how much noise one girl could possibly make. Shikamaru and Choji, for the most part, were quiet people. He liked quiet people. Ino was not. She more than made up for the others. Not only was she loud, but she talked, and talked and talked. He briefly turned her in to make sure it wasn't anything important. Nope, just more fashion. Okay, she was back out of the very small sphere of important things at the moment.

Suddenly something else was demanding entry into this very spartan field. It was pink, oh wait, it was Haruno Sakura. Was that blood in her hair, and why was she breathing hard?

"Ninjascameoutofthegroundandt ookNarutoandattackedusandhea dedoutofthevillageandSasukei sfollowingthemandicouldntkee pupandnowhesheadedoutoftownt othewestandicantdoanythingan dtheyneedheaaAAAAAH!"

"Wait say that again?"

"Ninjas came out of the ground! They took Naruto and attacked us and headed out of the village! Sasuke is following them and I couldn't keep up and now he is headed out of town to the west and I can't do anything and they need help!" Sakura sobbed barely able to keep speaking as she told the story.

Asuma froze as understanding sank in. Long underused emergency circuits in his brain were sluggishly beginning to fire. Cleaning out the rust of his neural pathways, the subtle form of panic began to set in. "Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, get home! Tell your parents what happened! Now! Tell them to meet at Hokage tower." He barked before turning back to the bloodied Sakura. "Sakura, I need you to tell me everything. What the ninja looked like, how many of them were there, where they were headed, any jutsu you may have seen them use, everything."

"I think there were three, no four of them, I'm not sure. I didn't get a really good look at them because they knocked me out. But there was this really big one, he had on an Iwa marker, and he kind of looked like he was wearing cloths like the pictures of Iwa-nin that they showed us at the academy but he was big and huge and he came up from the ground and grabbed Naruto by the head and he was holding him off the ground and crushing him and then there was another one, no two, I don't know, he moved too fast for me to see him. He sounded smaller than the big dumb one, he said they had to go. And then they ran!" Sakura was about to burst into tears as the whole weight of the situation crashed upon her. Asuma realized the girl hadn't even been on an out of town mission yet and she had already seen one of her teammates put in mortal peril and the other one had left her in the dust.

"Sakura, I know this is hard for you. But I need you to calm down at tell me which way they went."

"For-Forty-nine degrees west." She stuttered holding sniffing back tears. Asuma smiled and put his hand on her head. "Good. You will make a fine Ninja someday." He said.

Turning from the young genin Asuma traveled to the center of the Hokage's Office using Instantaneous Movement. "Uzumaki Naruto has been captured by alleged Iwa ninja." He announced to the cloud of paperwork thrown up by his entrance.

The Hokage quickly recovered and almost immediately settled into his 'situation mode.' "Assemble a tracking team now! Have them moving at once!" The old man barked to the walls. But Asuma heard three distinct pops and the ANBU hidden around the room disappeared.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Hinata nearly jumped out of her skin when her father suddenly moved to attack. Not her, thankfully, but the section of wall... or what had been a section wall, now standing there inches away from certain death was the masked hooded figure on an ANBU. The ANBU in question was wearing a penguin mask. "Suspected Iwa-nin have kidnaped Uzumaki Naruto. You are to lead a search and rescue team to find him. Meet your team in two minutes at point 49-98 along the western wall. Priority: maximum." And with that the man disappeared.

Hashi turned to Hinata and commanded, "You stay here." And he too disappeared with a puff of smoke. And for a little bit, Hinata was so confused she couldn't even move. She had never seen her father react that way about anything. She wasn't as good at face reading as she should be, especial reading the face of Hyuuga, and even worse at reading her father's expression, but she thought she had seen satisfaction and then fear before the look of duty solidified itself onto her father's face. What could make him react-

Her train of thought never finished as something even bigger rammed itself through her brain and into her heart. Naruto-kun had been captured. Kidnapped. Naruto! Her heart might have just stopped beating if it wasn't trying to rip itself out of her chest. For about twenty seconds Hinata struggled with herself. On the one hand Father had commanded that she stay here, on the other hand Naruto-kun was in danger. Rationality and future beatings were swept aside by panic by the thought that Naruto was in danger.

Hinata bolted. She ran out of the dojo, past her room, and out of the house - she hadn't even bothered to put on her shoes. Naruto's in trouble, Naruto's in trouble, repeated over and over in her mind. West. That was the direction she needed to head. Hinata ran through the crowd. Hands were brushing her. Grabbing her. The dusty road turn to mud underneath her bare feet. She kept running. Hinata wouldn't slow. Not when the buildings closed in. Not when the leaves turned to needles. Not when rocks cut her feet. Not when... Not when... not when...

Hinata dropped. On her hands and knees in the mud, Hyuuga Hinata began to cry. Despite what her father thought she hadn't cried since - since Mother died. Now here she was, in the midst of the street, surrounded by strangers, in her house cloths, crying. Because there was nothing she could do.

As her eyes began to clear, Hinata recognized the street. It was one she knew. But why? From where. Her thoughts were too muddled, the tears had filled up her brain and were drowning the other thoughts. From the salty brine covering her consciousness, she remembered. She had often come down this street following Naruto - the boy who was captured, the one she couldn't save. She had been following him to - to - to where? She couldn't think - the library!

Hinata pushed herself up out of the mud and barely managed to avoid a stampeding parade of men, women, and animals. Drained but determined Hinata pushed herself into another run. Tears were beginning to well up in her mind again-

"_Hinata," He had said with a very serious face, "Even if it is just for this little time. Can you keep your vigil eyes trained on my apprentice."_

Hinata stumbled. Sudden crushing failure collapsed upon her. Hon had asked her to watch Naruto. She couldn't face the man - no the failure. He wouldn't say anything, but his eyes would be enough. She failed. She failed. She failed. Slowly she turned away to trudge back home, knowing that hope was lost.

In the infinite strangeness of things Hinata's memory showed her Naruto - the side of him that she had seen only once. When he failed the exam - that side. That sad, empty side. She wondered if he felt anything like she did now. Failure draining every bit of energy from her limbs, sucking away her very will to live, was that how he felt? No, Naruto wouldn't feel that. He wasn't supposed to feel like that, he was Naruto! He was strong! He was going to be Hokage - no matter what anyone else thought. He could never feel like her, the failure Hyuuga, the worthless heir.

Suddenly Hinata couldn't go home. The white walls of home would stare at her like the Clan Elders' white eyes. They would seethe in silent disappointment and secret elation. The tears that were flowing here couldn't flow there, the walls would be watching. Hinata didn't want to go back, it would mean facing her failure, and her failure facing her.

Her foot caught on the simple ledge into the library and she fell. Hinata didn't want to get up, she wanted to lay there, but she could hear someone moving in the reading room. It had to be Hon. He didn't know.

"Hinata-chan?" Hon-san appeared around the corner, "A disaster has occurred, that is clear. What breed of doom has fate winged your way?"

"Na-" The words were clogged by a great blubbering Un-Hyuga sob. "They got Naruto."

"Who? Who 'got Naruto'?"

"I- I- I- don't know. But- An ANBU came - he came and told father - told father that Iwa-nin had got Naruto and - and -" Hinata couldn't get any more words out. Hon-san froze for a second and then he reached out and wrapped his arm around her. Hinata felt the warmth of the old man's arm around her shoulder. Then she felt the ground quit its hold upon her, Hon-san was pulling her through the air to set her down on a chair. The arm released her and he moved away.

Hinata opened her eyes and tried to see him through tear soaked sight. Hon-san's face was pinched and twisted like she had never seen it before. The old wrinkles were suddenly sharp and rigid, like canyons cut by force across his face. Even with all those wrinkles he did not seem old - he was... terrifying. Five harsh looking scrolls puffed into existence above the library scroll. Hon-san snatched them out of the air and then tossed them up.

"_Seal of Broken Cycles: Ageless Youth._" Hon-san's hard voice spoke. Above him one of the scrolls jerked, stopped, and then hung parallel to the ground. It opened and unfurled itself with the grace of a dropping bolder.

"_Armed Set: Hunters' Heir_" Another pillar of paper crashed open.

"_Seal the Gods: Thunder's Flashing Chariot._"

"_Seal of Broken Cycles: Terminal Respite - Maximum Release._"

"_Seal of Man's Doom: Last Will and Testament._" The final paper wall covered up Hon-san's face as it dropped, completing the circle around him. There was a mighty flash and a shockwave of thin white smoke. When the smoke cleared and the scrolls fell - no longer ridged like stone, but paper once again - Hon-san turned back to Hinata. The whole library, all the walls and books and scrolls seemed to be looking at her. His eyes were hard - like fathers - but his touch was gentle and he grabbed her elbow. "Come, Hinata-chan, you must stay safe."

He only pulled her slightly but the whole world seemed to blur like she was moving very fast, she felt almost no motion at all. Suddenly they were in the garden of her home. They were standing in front of the pond like they had always been there. She in her stained and muddy house cloths, and him, his yukata covered with new intricately carved armor, greaves and arm guards, a helm and a small shield, and simple breastplate - made of paper. One of the lines woven into his yukata flashed blue for a second and with a puff of smoke a seal appeared on Hinata's chest.

"_Seal of Hiding: The World is a Hidden Room_. There. Hinata," His old eyes bore like a swirling stream, inevitably with gentle force the one that wore away a mountain, "Return to your room. Do not speak to anyone, do not open the door for anyone, if anybody calls out for you do not show yourself - and they will not find you. Reveal yourself only to your father once this has past."

The man straightened and looked to the west and the back down at her. Something flashed behind his eyes. "They who come after, judge us upon the strength of our character, Hinata. Be strong." And he left in a puff of smoke.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sasuke had lost sight of the target, but they had been clumsy. They were too worried about getting away to try covering their tracks. They should have taken to the trees, but instead they plunged through the underbrush. Okay, they may have leapt in great bounds from one point to the next, using rocks whenever possible, but still tracking them - especially that great brute - was something even the most untrained Uchiha could do.

Their second mistake - after taking the mission in the first place - was thinking they could escape from Sasuke. This was the world in which he had been trained. They were dead. It was only a matter of time. Sasuke turned and shot through the forest again.

Suddenly, like he had emerged from a tree or something, an old man - a really, really old man - was rushing through the trees overhead. Every time his feet struck on of the large branches it released this strange thunk-hizz sound, and a pop when he moved away. Thunk-hizz-pop. Thunk-hizz-pop. All the way through the forest, too quiet for a civilian to hear, but loud enough for any Uchiha to notice.

Sasuke had never seen the man before, and he certainly didn't look like a Konoha ninja. No ninja that he had ever seen wore a long heavily folded yukata or odd bits of discarded - if flashy - armor. Enemy. He was headed in the same direction as Sasuke. The old man wasn't stopping. Judging by his movement... he knew where he was going. Likely part of the targeted group. Alone he would make an easier target than if he were part of the group. However, if he engaged the old man now the original targets would gain a larger lead.

Engage, eliminate as quickly as possible.

Sasuke executed his decision.

First the brace of a kunai pre-strung with explosive notes. He only had three sets, so he would need to conserve them. There had been no time to prepare so he was operating under only his daily supplies. The kunai sailed through the air, but neither blades nor blasts touched the man as he suddenly disappeared. Not a body flicker, that much was obvious - something was wrong.

"You are Uchiha... Sasuke? May I assume that you are pursuing your teammates captors?" Sasuke turned to see the old man hovering behind him in shock. A Konoha protector was tied tight around his forehead. "I assure you I mean no hostility. I too seek to return my apprentice safely. Proceed with all haste, though let us slacken our pace for a moment so that your path may be straightened... _Seal of the Hunter: Target Fixation._" One of the intricate patterns that crawled around the old yukata flashed as he reached out and touched Sasuke's shoulder.

Something twisted in Sasuke's mind. The shoulder where the old man had touched seemed to burn, yet there was no heat. From that brand, a thought emerged and wormed its way into Sasuke's mind. However it happened, blessing or curse he could not tell for the seal had faded now, he could feel something pulling him, pulling him where, or even how, he did not know. He felt the tug all the same.

"Follow at your pace, young Uchiha. The thought strikes me that fate has set for you, even amongst we other players, a special song for you this day."

"Wha-" But the man had already disappeared in the strange untraceable movement of his. Thunk-hizz-pop. A hundred meters through the forest the man was already moving again.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto... felt strange. Like his head was in water. Not floating on the top, not sinking, but it hovered somewhere in between pushed around by unseen forces. It seemed like it should hurt. It should hurt. It did hurt but... not now, not here. It hurt somewhere else, some when else.

Where was he? Why was here? His right was hot, his left cold... or something like that. What was hot, what was cold? The pain was real but not here, these were not real but here they were. This didn't make...

"Child." That voice wasn't real.

. .. ... ... ... ...

"Hey. Can we sl- slow down... now?" That voice was real.

Slowly there were more and more real things in Naruto's head, including pain. Pain. It was crawling in from the edges of his skull. Nibbling at his brain, then tearing his soft thinking flesh, then burning.

"Mmmmmmnnn." Naruto tried to moan. Naruto tried to hold his head. Both failed, spectacularly. He was bound and gagged and blinded. And being carried by a very large, very dim man.

"No numskull. Can't you even remember the plan? We were supposed to meet up with the others yesterday. And with your fantastic blunder half the town probably knows we were there by now." Another, sharper voice answered.

"Would you two both shut up and move?" A third voice commanded.

There was a moment of silence. Then: "Hey," a fourth voice, "What is that up there. Is that a-"

There was a hissing-sizzling noise and a great thump and then, suddenly, Naruto's world was spinning. His blindfold came flying off as he shot out of the giant ninja's grip. As the world around him tumbled over and over, Naruto thought he saw the man who had been carrying him, he was falling too, something glowing sticking out of his head. Quickly Naruto crashed into the stout trunk of a tree and slid to meet the ground.

"Scatter!"

Naruto wanted to see. What was going on? What happened? Who killed the big guy? Struggling against the rope, Naruto tried to free himself. They were too tight. The bonds were too strong. Instead Naruto threw his weight to the side and rolled over so he could face the clearing that they had been stopped in.

A body went flying across Naruto's vision. Above him Naruto heard the ring of metal clashing against metal. Across the small clearing, he could see the body of the massive ninja laying limp on the ground, an arrow protruding from his skull. The body came back through the trees, but in its path suddenly stood a man. In a whirl of motion the ninja was knocked back, blood flung from a wound. The man turned to meet the oncoming attack of one of Naruto's captors. The flung blades were deflected by the mans strange armor.

Underneath the armor, the man wore an old yukata covered in strange patterns. In a flash of movement, the battle had moved out of Naruto's gaze.

That man, who...

The battle suddenly moved back in front of Naruto. The other ninja were moving much faster than the Man in the Yukata. Even though one of them suffering greatly from the gash the man had left in his chest, he and his companion were running circles around him. The man's armor barely protected him. The third living member of the four-man team was launching volleys of shuriken from behind the trees whenever he got the chance. As the man whirled around to block another attack, Naruto caught a glimpse of his face.

Hon.

"_Barrier Wave_!" Hon announced shoving his hands out like he was parting the world in two. The fast ninja were blown back by a wave of blue-ish light. One slammed into a tree not far from Naruto while the other tumbled into the woods.

"I see that Iwagakure saw to commit their Dancing Brothers to this task, along side that cyclopean brute. However, I would venture to suppose this is their inaugural mission as chunin, would I be wrong? Ishimen, Stone Mask of Iwa?" Hon turned to face the last member of the team hiding behind the tree.

The man in the trees stepped out from his cover, and for the first time, Naruto noticed the featureless mask that covered the man's face. "Flattering," the man said, "But I unfortunately cannot return the favor, Ninja of the Leaves. We need to be leaving, but if your name has price, I might be convinced to stay."

"Hardly a surprise that my reputation has faded in these years, I had none. _Seal of the Elements: Fury of the Earth! _I can afford neither reputation, nor vain codes of honor in my particular situation." Naruto heard Hon say over the roar of the massive explosion that erupted from the ground under Ishimen's feet. The smoke hadn't even begun to settle when from the ground a rocky hand emerged aimed for Hon's feet. Hon shot straight up in the air in an incredibly unnatural move. Naruto had never seen Hon move like that. How? How was he moving like that?

The answer came seconds later when from the ground shot jagged projectiles of stone. Something yanked Hon's arms and pulled him free from harm. Naruto notice streaming behind the colorful armor a haze of blue particles. Hon was somehow using that armor to propel his arms - that was how the old man was able to keep up with the blinding speed of the ninja.

"_Seal of the Hunter: Flushed from Cover!_" One of the longest lines of sealing worked into Hon's armor flashed brilliant blue. Naruto felt something strange pass through him, like he had been hit with a harsh gust of wind. Suddenly all three ninja jumped from their hiding spot in the trees and under the ground into daylight. Naruto too was knocked a ways into the forest. Through the trees he could see Hon land on a tree and raise his arm. A brace of kunai suddenly redirected themselves to slam into the small shield strapped to Hon, coupled with the call "_Seal of the Hunter: Armor's Duty."_

"_Weapon of the Hunter: Earth Spear" _A puff of smoke and a spear appeared in Hon's hand and he darted out of sight. He had to see, Naruto had to see. What was going on? Was Hon winning? Hon had come to save him, he had to be winning. There was an anguished cry from somewhere out of sight. Naruto tried wiggling back toward the battle. Hon and the Dancing Brothers were clashing again in the clearing - the spear was gone. Hon's propelled arms were barely blocking the torrent of blows that the pair unleashed upon him. For a second, Hon's hand lay flat against the arm of one of the Dancing Brothers. The ninja screamed as he flailed through the pink mist that used to be his arm. One of the leg guards pushed Hon's leg to kick the injured brother away from the battle. The momentary lapse in the other brother's attack was apparently all Hon needed. Suddenly he disappeared.

Naruto heard the name of the sealed weapon called from somewhere behind him. "_Weapon of the Hunter: Bow of Lightning" _The same glowing yellow rod that had killed the giant man flew over Naruto and through the remaining Dancing Brother's chest. The man fell, a slash across his abdomen and a hole just above his heart, clearly dead. Killed by the crackling lightning element chakra infused in the arrow.

Naruto rolled over to see where Hon was. The shot had come from deeper in the woods, away from the sight of battle. Suddenly, in that strange way he had disappeared before, Hon appeared standing nearby.

"Hon!" Naruto tried to call out, still gagged. Hon had saved him. He had never seen a fight like that, it was amazing! Naruto always admired the Librarian, but now... Hon seemed to glow. His master, his savior, Hon reached out to Naruto.

"Fear not Naru-"

.

no

.

no.

.

No.

NO.

NO!

NOOOOOO!

The kind smile had disappeared from Hon's face, replaced by a grim hollow gasp of surprise. The vital tension in Hon's aged limbs slackened and he slid farther down the lacerating stone lance. Crimson streams fell down the jagged rocky weapon onto the arm that it covered then onto the ground that hid the assassin.

To Naruto the world moved in slow motion. The ninja birthed from the ground slunk slowly from the dirt. Hon fell to the ground and the stone mask bent down to see. Blood mixed with Hon's hair and the dusty ground. A ruined yukata was being stained crimson, the carefully woven pattern becoming indistinguishable in the mortal heu. A single drop fell from the bedrock mask on to Hon's face.

::you could kill it::

The world was growing colder.

"I never did learn your name. Pity, clearly there would have been some value to it."

::would you like to remove it::

The air was like ice. The bonds holding him like frozen fire. The blood was creeping in through Naruto's eyes. Into his brain. The blood was trickling, congealed by the arctic air. Icy tears were boiling away on Naruto's cheeks. The world was freezing up. The ice was closing in. The bonds were ashes now - frozen to ashes. As ice burned away in his chest.

The world had frozen Naruto's limbs, dead as Hon's. The world was freezing his mind. The air was freezing away his lungs, stealing his life. It was so cold. Dead cold.

::go ahead, kill it::

Naruto twitched.

::rip through its flesh::

Naruto pushed the ground. Ishimen noticed the ex-captive moving.

::crush its bones::

The stone mask turned to look at Naruto. Naruto was on one knee. Naruto was shivering in the dead cold air.

::you can destroy it::

The stone lance was moving back. Ishimen was moving into a stance. Naruto was tensing, something was building in his muscles. There was ice forming on his legs, heavy frozen crystals.

::take this and use it...::

Naruto moved.

::to repay him a hundred thousand fold::

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH!"

The world was frozen red. Everything made of frozen blood. Naruto's blood from his shredded hand on the broken stone mask. Stone Mask's blood flowing from the gaping chasm in the man's gut. The ripples in Hon's blood as his body twitched. A blood scream froze in the air. Blood on the face under the stone. The frozen blood words: "_Seal of Hiding: Events Cloaked in Shadow." _ Tree blood on his feet as he turned to attack again. Blood in Naruto's eye, blood on his tongue, blood in the fear of the man before him. Blood in the ground as he tried to get away.

Blood on his fist, a skull breaking under his hand.

The world was iced. Naruto caught the man by the neck. His fingers warmed up as he pulled back his hands. Fire flaring on his fingers. Nails of fire in world of ice. Claws. Claws of fire to rip and burn. Claw of fire to destroy and crush. Claws to end. Claws to kill. Claws to melt this bloody world and let the crimson flow.

::KILL IT!::

"Naruto. Stop"

The fire stopped. The ice stopped. Then blood stopped. Everything stopped to listen when Hon coughed. "Not your soul. Do not give that beast your soul."

Naruto dropped the man and stumbled toward his master. He turned Hon over so that he could see the face, trying desperately not to see the mortal hole. "Hon, you're..."

"Afforded a brief respite from termination, courtesy of a seal that I never meant to willing use. Now here I am, longing for a moment more of this thing called life. Naruto listen, do not begrudge a man his last words."

Naruto swallowed the tears as best he could and nodded.

"Naruto, do whatever you must to become what you choose yourself to be, avoid all paths that lead to what you despise."

The tears were coming back, stronger than ever.

"Hold close to that which is precious."

Suddenly it wasn't the world that was frozen. Frost was covering Naruto's heart.

"Love. Do not hide away yourself; for that was the mistake of this old fool. Love, surround yourself with love. A library of love is more precious than any treasury."

Hot, unbearably hot, tears stung Naruto.

"Thank you Naruto," Hon's deathly voice rattled, "Thank you for teaching me how to love again."

"_You will become a fine Hokage one day, Naruto..."_

A minute of silence passed. And then a minute more. Then many many minutes more. When the last light was slipping from the sky, then Naruto let himself cry.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Night had fallen and even Sasuke was tired. This time of the year, the moon wouldn't rise until shortly before midnight. Part of Sasuke believed that continuing this mission would be pointless but something told him that his targets were near. It was the spell that the man had put on him. And an Uchiha would not stop if his prey was near.

Suddenly, something in the air changed. That strange feeling that had been building spiked. It was like Sasuke had passed through a wall into a sauna. The air was suddenly hot, like the nights after the hottest summer days. There was obviously some kind of barrier jutsu around here, likely to keep a battle secret. However once someone passed through the barrier it was obvious there had been a fight here. It felt full of chakra.

Sasuke inhaled deeply, heightening his sense like the Inuzuka taught him. Blood. There was blood in the air. Sasuke tracked the scent through the forest to a clearing and slightly beyond. Silently working his way around the clear to the other side Sasuke looked around. There was obviously a battle here. A large crater marred the clearing, kunai were lodged deep in trees, one side of the clearing sported deep ugly smoldering gashes, and throughout the field there was evidence of high level earth jutsu.

The feeling of unease grew the farther in he moved. He was an Uchiha, what could make him feel like this. He was glad - glad that he wasn't here for... whatever happened.

There was a snap and his hair stood on end. What was wrong with him?

Peering through the darkness Sasuke saw some... one stumbling through the forest. He seemed to be walking with a purpose. Sasuke followed the man's path to...

Naruto, hunched over someone. That man from before, the one that had given Sasuke the way to find Naruto. (Even now Sasuke could feel the strange pull toward Naruto) His head was resting on the corpse's bloody brow. The stumbling man reached the pair. Sasuke noticed the man's unbalanced gate, the man was clutching his left side like... his arm was missing Sasuke realized. Clumsily the man pulled out a kunai and started moving toward Naruto.

Sasuke was faster. His kunai reached the mans neck before the man even got close to Naruto. The flying blade lodge itself deep into the man's throat severing his trachea and probably wedging itself into his spine. Obviously only barely alive and even less awake the man collapsed, choking in his unconsciousness.

Death descended on the dark forest. The half-breaths of the dying man, the breath of Sasuke the assassin, the breaths of Naruto grieving, and the empty breath of the corpse mixed together for a moment in silence.

Then the forest was alive with sound of life.

"Secure the area!" Hyuuga Hiashi barked, "Pay careful attention to the ground. Don't let anything through."

Sasuke felt the oppressing heat escape as the Hyuuga and three other ninja began dashing about the area. There looked to be a Aburame and an Inuzuka in the group.

"Uchiha Sasuke!" Sasuke snapped to attention when he heard his name called, "What happened here?"

"I don't know." Sasuke sniffed, "I just got here it time to kill that guy." He nodded to the disarmed corpse. "Anyway, who is that?"

"Uhhh. Uzumaki Naruto, you're teammate?" Hiashi answered.

"No, under him!" Sasuke caught the Hyuuga's eyes flash for a second as he did something with his bloodline inheritance limit.

"That," the Hyuuga sighed, "Is Senju Hon - Konoha's Demon Librarian."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sarutobi tried to sink his fingers into his brain through his forehead wrinkles. It didn't work very well. He had a boy to console, a very important boy who had just gone through a very traumatic experience and needed a consoling hand, a home to go home to, and a huge bowl of ramen. They needed to be dealing with him, not arguing about this utter smoke-forsaken crap! His hand was reaching for the standing stone sitting on his desk. He could deliver a KO, right now.

Naruto needed him. Maybe, though, Naruto needed him even more here. Sarutobi hoped that he would see it that way.

"The monster could be ready to pounce. Hon warned us about this! It's right there in black and white!"

"I would think if the Kyuubi were going to escape he would have taken the opportunity at the moment when Naruto was the weakest. Obviously it didn't, we would have known if it did. Nobody reported any demonic chakra. You can't use that as a convenient excuse." The Hokage answered back.

"I think you are underestimating the Kyuubi, it is craftier than any of us know. How else could it just have appeared in the middle of the city like that! If nobody sensed it last time why should they sense it now."

"That's... classified."

"Classified!" The council man roared, "We are the council! We have rights to all the information we need to know! This is a potential crisis, we need to know!"

"Not for a petty inheritance dispute you don't. As far as I am concerned the Library of Senju Hon passes on to Uzumaki Naruto, his _apprentice,_ with no issue."

"Ah, but you can't make that decision! The fact is, that it is property of the Senju clan, all power to which now resides in this council."

"There is still-"

"She absolved her rights when she asked to leave the village! The council has all legal rights to govern Senju property how we see fit."

"You can't just overrule a will. One that you yourselves accepted not three months ago."

"When it comes to matters advancing the good of Konoha, yes I think we can. That was the task we were charged with when this council was founded."

"I wo-"

"Think about it, Sarutobi. With the seals in that library, our military strength would be untouchable. Anybody could be a ninja! It would save so much time and effort training. Years of training could be cut by handing them a scroll! A life time with a year of study!"

"You've seen Hon's work! Naruto is probably the only person who can even begin to understand it now. You would be robbing the very person who you would need to run the library. Do you think he would be so inclined to help you after he learned that you cheated him out of his right?"

"No, but who is going to tell him. As far as he would know, he would be hired by the council to work the library that has passed to public control."

"I would tell him." Sarutobi locked the councilman with a stare. They had been growing more and more ambitious lately. Before he had allowed it because they were making his life easier. Now he regretted every bit of freedom he had given them.

"You-"

"I would tell him the truth. You wouldn't even be able to get in front door."

"What do you mean?"

"Naruto is the only person, aside from Hon himself, who has ever had free access to the library - the only person who ever got in without Hon's expressed permission. I am sure you would find some-" but Sarutobi was cut off as a clan aid came rushing through the door.

"Master, we were unable to gain access to the library to see what was in there. There was some kind of seal that prevented us from entering."

Sarutobi smiled smugly. The smile slowly faded as he heard the councilman ask if they had tried the windows. Those, too, had apparently been sealed shut. The aid was ordered to get a seal master and break the seal. The Hokage laughed. "Don't even try. If it's Hon's work... well I'm not helping you find Jariaya. And your only other option is the boy himself, and I will not help you convince him to give up his inheritance. That library belongs to him."

The councilman snarled.

"Well, I've about had it with tonight. So I am going to adjourn this meeting _now_. Good night." Sarutobi stood up and turned to the door. "However," he turned back and snatched the will off of the table, "I think I will take this with me, lest it undergo any 'legal revisions'." And the Hokage strolled out of the door, leaving behind several very unhappy council members.

As he left the tower the Hokage sighed, this all was too much. Too much on his bones, too much on his mind, too much for one small boy sitting in his house alone. Naruto had been sitting in his house since he had been brought back, brooding. He had seen far too many good ninja go bad for that: brooding. And where had he been? Dealing with the sharks on the council, unfeeling opportunistic bastards. They got him there only by claiming it was his "duty as Hokage" to attend the damn thing. Yet the only thing he could think during that whole useless political scrum was that the place he should be, the place the _Hokage should be_ was by the boy's side.

Naruto could become mentally unstable, his depression could release the beast held within, he could turn on the village, he needed to be stabilized; the Hokage had thought of these arguments before - but they wouldn't have helped. In the end, reasoning with the council would have been like trying to sweet talk a gaoler - ineffective. Naruto needed someone by his side, he needed comfort, not stabilization. Comfort from a friendly face and hand...

And the person who could give that best was dead. Only now, Sarutobi ruefully admitted, only now did he realize how much he had let his job slack. He was supposed to care for Naruto, the fourth's legacy, but when Hon had entered the scene he had started to let his job slide. He had let Naruto down by pawning to Hon his duties and, inevitably, his relationship with the boy. He wasn't the person that Naruto trusted, he wasn't even there when Naruto needed him. Sarutobi Hiruzen stopped in front his own front door, unsure if he was even worthy to enter his own home.

"Hokage-sama? Is that you?"

"Anko, what are you doing on my roof?" Sarutobi looked up.

"The same thing the rest of them were doing, watching." Kakashi's head leaned out over the edge of the Hokage's house, into view.

"Others? Who's been on my roof? And what happened to your hair?"

"Oh, Raido, Ebisu, Hayate, Guy, Kurenai, a guy in a penguin mask; the motley crew. Most of them have left, right now it's just me and Anko."

"Ok, you two are on my roof, 'watching,'" Sarutobi grumbled, "You're not really going to make me come up there are you?" Seconds later the Hokage was flanked by two ninja as he entered his house.

"Thank you." Across the room through the open door, Sarutobi could barely make out an orange jump suit sitting in the shadows on the far side of the garden. He paused and set the will on the closest lateral surface, a shelf that was still a week or two away from complete collapse. The Hokage moved into the house and started toward the open door to the court yard. But then on the threshold of light and shadow he stopped. "What," he groaned, "if I told you I was afraid."

"Huh?" Anko scrunched her face, confused, "Afraid of what."

"Kakashi, you can see his face with your eye, can't you? With your eyes, can you see his?" The masked man nodded in answer - Anko frowned. "Even though time has taken away my eyes, it has not left me without sight. If I see his face now, will I see the faces of others? I am afraid to face my failure."

"Failure?"

"The failure that every leader dreads, failure to protect what we hold dear. Failure to be a god among men. Failure to even know what really matters to us. Failure to remember that every decision I make, every time I put down my signature, I am putting people in harms way. I have killed people with ink. I have sent men to die with my signature. And even worse than that, every action, every person I speak to or ignore, how I choose to spend every moment changes the playing field. This time I blundered. I may have lost us the game, and I didn't even think about that as I pushed Naruto onto Hon. Now Hon is dead, dead because I didn't choose the right people to watch Naruto. Dead because I wasn't careful enough. That boy is blaming himself. He is reliving every moment of the past two weeks trying to figure out how he could have saved his precious person. He is blaming himself when I am the person to blame. I know because I have seen countless ninja go through this before, and because I have gone through it myself. But I caused this, I failed. And I am afraid to face it." The Hokage stared out the open door beyond the moonlit shaft into the shadows at the orange form of the boy. He was a boy with a dream. "Anko, so many dream of being Hokage, and there is nothing I would like more than to rid myself of this position and return to retirement, and yet I find that I can not even imagine burdening someone else with the untold horrors of this responsibility. Is this the only thing this will of fire leave behind if it burns too long: ashes?"

"Wha-"

But the Hokage wasn't listening. He was walking toward the boy on the far side of the house.

Naruto looked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. For a second his eyes met the Hokages, but then he looked away. "Naruto," the old man moved to sit next to him but Naruto moved away, "This was my fault."

"No," Naruto shook his head, slowly, sadly, "You're wrong."

"And I'll never be able to convince you otherwise." Naruto shook his head and looked up at the moon that was beginning to peek around the edge of the roof. And for a time they sat like that. Not saying anything. Waiting, dreading, the rising sun and a new day.

0o0o0o0o0o0o00o0o0o0o0

A day without Senju Hon was a day without tears, a day without stuttering, a day without weakness. Hyuuga Hinata had stood resolute in that promise. Except when she hadn't. She had cried when she heard her father whispering about the library with the elders. At least she had managed to hide her tears - mostly - in her room. There was no place in the Hyuuga compound that was completely private. After that though, when she had seen her father sitting at the table the next morning, she promised herself that she would be strong - like Naruto was. If history judged her by her character, she was going to have a good character for them to judge.

Hinata looked up at the stranger who was standing over the urn that held Hon-san. It was apparently her that the funeral had waited for. There had been a buzz going around in the compound for days. Hon had specifically mentioned something about her in his will. Hinata wasn't exactly sure who she was but she gathered that the blond lady was somehow related to Hon-san.

"I, Senju Tsunade, have come to pay my debt, Senju Hon. You old bastard." She said, with mixed reverence and revulsion. She held out her hand and there was a flash of light. For a second she held the pose. "There, he is dead."

Hinata watched as the woman turned and left. She didn't even return to her spot in line, she just left. Part of Hinata wanted to run after her and put her back in line. But that would only draw more attention and be even more... improper. The funeral proceeded strangely, there were others who came forward to "pay their debts" and others who came to pay their respects. Hon had never seemed so important to her. It wasn't a big funeral by any stretch of the imagination, but there were more people than she would have thought - given how few people visited the library.

And then it was over. The final rites were being read and everyone was preparing to leave when the strangest thing of all happened. Hon-san's urn burst into a massive towering pillar of flame. It burned high into the morning sky and left no smoke. Higher and hotter and brighter until just as suddenly it stopped.

And for some reason that caused Naruto to smile. Hinata had been watching Naruto from behind. He stood in the front row and never moved. She had never seen him that still before. Even when he was lost in deep thought his fingers always twitched like he was holding something, or he would pace. Naruto could sit still when he was reading, but every so often he would shift or turn a page. Not once during the whole ceremony did he make one unnecessary move. He could have been replaced with stone and moved more.

And yet at the end, that smile, it proved he was still Naruto. Somewhere beyond that frozen stoic face - that seemed too much like her father - Naruto was still in there.

And when the shock of seeing the hundred meter flaming pillar of DOOM, as the inner Naruto wanted Hinata to call it, wore off the Hokage and Kakashi-san approached Naruto. Together they left and Hinata headed in the other direction. As she walked beside her father, Hinata's thoughts turned to when her father had stood before Hon's ashes.

"Father, if I may ask," she swallowed the stutter that tried to cut her off, "What did you mean at the funeral? Why is the clan indebted to Hon-san?"

"Many years ago, long before you were born, Hon paid assistance to the clan. My father was still the clan head when it happened. Kirigakure had kidnapped a member of the clan. Then the Caged Bird Seal was not as powerful as it is today. Hon somehow strengthened the seal and assured us that even if her eyes fell into the hands of others its secrets would not. Months later the village received intelligence that indeed the a Kiri-nin had acquired a single eye - however, to our knowledge they have never been able to reproduce it. The current stability of clan was ensured by Hon - that is the only reason that I even allowed you to visit that library."

"Oh, I did not know that."

"Yes, the library of Senju Hon," Hinata's father stopped in his tracks and growled, "No. The library of Uzumaki Naruto holds secrets too dear to many of the clans." He began walking again, anger was slipping to his features now, "Secrets that ought to be guarded very carefully."

Hinata and her father walked to the end of the block without speaking. "Return home Hinata, I must see the Hokage before I return." He turned away from the road home toward Hokage Tower.

"Actually, Father. There are some things that I must attend to as well before I can return home." Hinata's voice raced ahead of her mind, dragging her thoughts along behind. Naruto would be going home, home to _his _library. She couldn't even think about Hon without feeling her stomach drop out from underneath her. It would be torture for Naruto to be surrounded by so many memories, alone. Maybe, she could help even just a little bit.

"Do as you wish." Her father turned away and left her. Hinata waited until her father was out of sight before she started running. Hinata took to the roofs, she didn't know the streets in this area but above all the streets she knew exactly where the library was. It was on the west end of town in a fairly quiet district on a street mostly avoided by the normal population. She could probably get there in less time from here without having to leave the roofs to cross any of the major streets - the ones that were too wide to jump across.

There was something different about the library. Not the least of which was the new plaque hanging above the door. Hon had hung a strange little sign above the door - a seal Hinata had supposed. However that sign had inexplicably changed. But beyond that the place felt different. It didn't feel like Hon's library any more. It felt... empty.

Hinata stood outside the door. Was this really the right thing to do? Would it just be better if she went home and left Naruto alone? Maybe that was what he needed right now, just some time alone. That was all Hinata had wanted when her mother died, time alone when she didn't have to be anything for anyone. She had been so confused and lost and angry. She had hated when she was force to come out of her room. When those people looked at her, all she had wanted to do was run away. Maybe Naruto felt like that too, maybe he didn't want her here. Maybe he would resent her for following him. She should leave.

But just as she was turning to go the door opened. "Hey, Hinata-chan." Naruto stood at the door with that same horrible empty face, "Why are you here?"

"Well - ano - I'll leave if - if you want me to." Hinata cringed and then cringed a second time for breaking her promise to stay strong again. She prepared her for the rejection that was no doubt to come. Of course he didn't want company right now, who was she to think that he did?

"No!" Hinata jumped back in surprise at the force of the word. Naruto pulled back sheepishly, "Please don't go. I - I have some tea, if - if you'd like some." Naruto drew his arms around his chest like Hinata did when she felt the stares, when she tried to hide herself. She couldn't bring herself to speak, so Hinata simple nodded and followed Naruto in.

The inside of the library felt different to. Somehow it seemed emptier, like how a cup might feel if it has been full and was suddenly empty. The kindness of the walls that Hinata always felt seemed different. Even the books and scrolls felt... different. So many of these books were written or collected by Hon, maybe they were sad that he died to.

"I haven't quite been able to figure out which ones were Hon's really good teas yet, so I'm sorry if I picked a bad one." Naruto called out from the kitchen. Hinata followed his voice down one of the hallways that she had never actually used. She had seen Hon come out of this hallway with special books or scrolls that he said weren't appropriate for the public collection, but apparently this was also where Hon lived.

Of course he had to live somewhere, Hinata wanted to smack herself. People didn't just live in the reading room of a library. There was a crashing from the kitchen. "Are you all right. Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked as she entered.

"Yeah. I'm fine, nothing broke," he said leaning down to pick up the colorfully enameled boxes that had tumbled off the shelf. Naruto filled the tea pot with the hot water from the sealed kettle, and dropped in the tea ball. Then he brought the tea set out to the reading room and Hinata followed.

On one of the tables in the reading room was covered in books and scrolls and paper. Hinata could see that one of the older looking scrolls had the new symbol that hung above the door next to the old symbol and two more. Naruto set the tea tray down on the table next to it and pulled out a chair for Hinata to sit down. "It's a lot to make sense of all at once," he gestured to the papers, "And right now I really don't want to do any of this. But I don't know what else to do. I can't think of doing anything else but reading."

"H-how are you doing?"

Naruto grimaced, "About as well as one can except. I suppose."

"What hap-" Hinata slapped her hands over her mouth. Once again her tongue had sped way ahead of her mouth. Naruto's face fell even further. The whole room seemed to depress with his mood.

"I fell for a genjutsu. They got me and Hon-san had to come save me. And then he died. Hinata, I killed Hon-san."

"No!" Naruto looked up at her. "You didn't kill him. Those Iwanin killed him. It's not your fault!" Hinata almost shouted. It wasn't Naruto's fault. It was the other people's fault for letting the ninja get into the village. It was the Hokage's fault for not keeping a good enough defense. It was his teammates fault for not protecting him. It was her father's fault for not finding them fast enough. It was Kakashi-san's fault for leaving Naruto alone. It was her fault for not keeping a close enough watch. It was all of their faults, but it was not Naruto's fault. "It's not your fault."

"You're wrong. I was too weak, I fell for a genjutsu. I failed."

"Kurenai-sensei says even the strongest ninja can get trapped in genjutsu. It doesn't mean you're weak."

Suddenly Naruto lit up. "That's right. Your sensei is the best genjutsu user in the village. Take me to her!"

Hinata almost fainted when she realized that Naruto had grabbed her hand.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Can you say that again? Please?" Kurenai looked down at the boy who looked like he had practically dragged her student to her house.

"I want you to teach me how to beat genjutsu. That way my failures won't hurt anybody ever again."

Kurenai should have said no. Every part of her rational mind said that this boy was walking down a dangerous path and that she needed to stop him right here, right now. However there was another part of her that was caught up in the dedication, in the force and energy behind his gaze. That part wanted to believe this kid could do the impossible. That part wanted it to be true. That part wanted to teach him everything she knew and more.

That part won. "No one can become completely immune to genjutsu."

"Watch me."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Onyx: Here it is. The conclusion of the first arch of the Librarian Chronicles. Didn't see that coming did you? I'm going to keep this short. Please, let me know what you think. I not only love getting feedback, but I love engaging with you guys!

Onyx: Stay tuned for plot, power, character development, and jokes! On The Librarian Chronicles: Book 2!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

One week ago.

Naruto's head lay against his beloved masters, tear-tossed to sleep. And deep in sleep the boy did not see the inky blackness rise up from his masters dead body. He could not see the content of the hidden seal burn itself briefly onto the flesh of the man. And as the seal broke that which was stored inside was released.

Darkness like ink oozed from the seal and slowly formed a shape only barely like a human. Like a man pulled and stretched, deformed of any features but its uncanny shape and oversized eyes, the demon placed one of its massive three fingered hands around its small spherical head to block out the star light.

Tearing itself from its prison the creature moved off to the west, away from where the moon would rise. And following it, from the body of the librarian came another black inky beast. The Demon Librarian's Collection had been freed.


	7. Chapter 7

Naruto looked up from the bench and checked the small skylight for a rough estimate of the time. There was still enough light filtering through the slip to suggest that another fifteen minutes of work would be an acceptable use of time, and that the Aburame were still unlikely to throw him out. Naruto turned back to his work and lifted up another small insect from the unsorted pile and set it in front of him. Naruto enjoyed working here with the Aburame clan. Sorting bugs was actually a lot of fun. The room was fairly quiet and kept at a wonderfully warm temperature, maybe a little bit too warm sometimes, and the stools were surprisingly comfortable. The work was perfectly enjoyable.

One of the best things about sorting the bugs was that Naruto could never fail. Where seals could sometimes get frustrating with their complicated tracings and constant failures and super important minutia, bug sorting didn't. It was so wonderfully simple: remove a bug, set it down, run a series of tests, and place it in the box best suited for it. And yet, for its simplicity, it took a wonderful amount of concentration. There was so much to consider. The speed, the strength, the responsitivity. In some ways it was a lot like meditating, he had to learn to let go of his decision after he made it, and move on.

((I changed it to fit better but even then, do you mean response as in responsibility or response time? I'd use one of the two in this case.))

The room was filled with the tiny rustle of insects moving inside their small wooden channels, the low hum of a few temporal acceleration seals, and the sound of clothes moving as the Aburame moved insects from box to box.

It was calm, it was peaceful, and most importantly there was absolutely nothing to remind Naruto of Hon-san. He could come here on those days that the memory of him was too much to bare to lose himself in a simple task. Aburame Shino had invited Naruto to look at a malfunctioning temporal seal several weeks back, but he had stayed to watch Shino work. It was really interesting actually. Naruto knew that a lot of people would be surprised that he enjoyed this; first off, because he was working with bugs which most people did not like, but secondly because it seemed like such a boring task. But Naruto didn't find this boring at all. He was actually helping along the process of evolution. Every choice he made altered the potential next generation of Kikai bugs and then someone else could start fresh. On the one hand he could change so much, and on the other he could change so little.

In all, the whole experience was highly cathartic.

"Naruto," Shino spoke up from his seat next to Naruto. "I wish to inform you that my team and I will be leaving for an out-of-town mission in two days' time." It was a little odd for the Aburame to speak at all - but particularly in the bug sorting room. A lot of people would try to make the work go fast by gentle conversation - even other members of Shino's small clan would find a partner and speak in hushed tones, but Shino usually stayed silent, focusing on the bugs.

"Good luck. Is it a C ranked mission?" Naruto didn't stop his own work because Shino didn't stop his. Even after several weeks of dropping by the sorting room with Shino, Naruto still took most of his cues from the boy. Shino nodded and dropped the bug that he was inspecting into the "speed" shoot.

"It is" He answered. "We will be helping guard a small trading convoy south to the ports. It should take us ten days to reach the ports and a week to return, additionally we shall protect the cargo from thieves at the port until they can be loaded onto a ship which could take from two hours to two days. The estimated length of the mission is eighteen days."

"Well congratulations." Naruto laid out a line of chakra string and set the Kikai bug at one end. Naruto timed the bug as it followed the trail, checking its speed and route. It was a fairly slow bug that seemed to wander quite a bit. Naruto wondered if maybe it would make up for its lack of useful mobility with its strength. "I think your team will do excellently."

"Kurenai-sensei believes that as well. And I do not doubt her judgment." The bug proved to be a great deal stronger than some of its brothers and sisters so Naruto moved it into the strength shoot. From there it would crawl down into a special sub hive and breed with other bugs. After a time, a random sample of these bugs would be introduced to the main hive. Sometimes the Aburame would take from one of the special chambers to restock his or her own supply or add in some of the new traits developed through the selective breeding process. "However the possibility remains that one of us could die on the trip."

Naruto stopped and looked over at his friend. Shino pulled out another bug and brought it close to his eyes for inspection. "Let me come with you."

Shino shook his head and set the bug on the bench before him. He took out a paper and began working on an intelligence test. "Hinata has already asked Kurenai-sensei if you could be added to our team roster for the duration of the mission. She declined for a variety of reasons. First because you are not officially part of our team - and for right now she wanted to develop our team work as a unit. Additionally, it seems that you, yourself, are not allowed to participate in out-of-town missions at this moment. Were you aware of this?"

Naruto begrudgingly went back to the work, though maybe he was being a little bit rougher with the bugs than he should have been. "Yeah, I know. It's because of this whole 'probationary graduation' thing that I got enrolled in. Sometimes it can be so troublesome."

"Do you know when you will be allowed to take higher level missions?" Shino asked.

"Heh, probably never. Unless I like, go in and put my name on the roster. I wonder if I could I do that. Point is, the old man's probably never going to let me leave the village. At least not until Ebisu-"sensei" tells him I'm ready. And that means tree walking." Naruto set down his bug and looked up at the window. "Do you know where they keep the rosters for missions?"

"I do not, Naruto. However, I think it would be inadvisable to attempt any action that would put you in a bad light - give your situation hinges upon the opinions of our superiors."

"Yeah," Naruto shrugged, "I suppose you're right - but it would nice to finally go on interesting missions for once. These D ranked ones are just so boring!"

"I must agree, however we both understand why they are necessary." Shino set down his tools and began to pack up. Naruto followed suit. While Shino insisted that he was welcome to work in the sorting room unsupervised, now that he knew the process, it still seemed wrong to intrude without the presence of his stoic friend.

"Yeah, yeah." Naruto said as he began to replace his own, borrowed tools, into their compartments.

Shino and Naruto closed the doors to the hive corridors making sure they were latched to keep stray Kaiki bugs from walking loose around the sorting room and contaminating the research of the other Aburame. "I have no doubt that you and your team will graduate to higher level missions soon. You are making far too much progress for them not to recognize that. It is only fair."

"Yeah well, fair isn't how the world works." Naruto muttered under his breath, his hand slid down to rest on his hara above where the seal that kept his 'eccentricity' locked away.

"Perhaps on a more jovial note," Shino said as they stood up to leave, "I think you would like to know that my request for a research grant has been approved by the clan council."

"They're letting you make superbugs? That's awesome!" Naruto flashed a smile (a six on the SG scale, the measuring scale of grins that went from 1 - which was Shiki Aburame to 10 which was equivalent to a Gai-sensei-grin-of-the-blinding-light) and nearly jumped with excitement. "Like what are you making? Giant bugs, exploding bugs, bug that take over people brains?"

"I am not making 'superbugs' Naruto. The council has approved my recommendation to create a breed of Kaiki bugs capable of self-actualized response. A commander class Kaiki that could act like captains of organized units."

"Wow. That's pretty cool. So you're making smart superbugs?"

"Yes, Naruto," Shino sighed, "I will be working on breeding a 'super smart' bug." After they climbed through the door in the ground that led to the subterranean sorting room, Shino turned to Naruto. "I did ask if they would allow me to have a partner for my research and that was approved as well. And my budget is the largest ever given to a genin in my clans history. The council was very impressed with the proposal."

"But I mean, it was only your dad, your uncle and your aunt right? It couldn't have been too hard to convince them," Naruto shrugged.

Shino shook his head and gestured to the small neighborhood where most of the Aburame lived. It was technically called the Aburame District - but the whole district comprised maybe twelve acres of land - and most of it was gardens tended by the clan. Of all the "noble" clans of Konoha, the Aburame was the smallest. The whole clan was composed of about six different family sets - a total population about thirty-six members. "The council is usually very strict about resources - for they are scarcer than we like to admit. Many others submit dozens of proposals before they even get a dedicated station - and many more before they receive an assistant or a budget. The response to my proposal is unprecedented. It has not gone unnoticed by the other members and I will be under a great pressure to produce results."

"Umm, wow. I didn't realize that this was such a big deal. Congratulations. Ahh, who is going to be your assistant? Is it going to be Konoka?"

"No," Shino brushed off the not so subtle allusion to Shino's 'hot' cousin, "Though I think Konoka would be a fair assistant - I would ask you to be my _partner _in this project."

"Wha? Me?"

"Yes, you," he nodded, "The majority of the proposal that I submitted was printed verbatim from our conversations. More of it was your words than mine - while I found the idea fascinating, it was your idea. You would know better than anyone else what to look for and how to tackle the problem. In fact, you already have expressed many ideas on how to begin - most of which were in the proposal. I may be able to replicate what you have already suggested, but if I were to experience a problem or find myself unable to proceed any farther, I believe that I would likely ask for your assistance anyway. Please Naruto?"

"Am I even allowed to do it? I mean I'm not part of your clan - and aren't I breaking a lot of rules already just knowing where the sorting room is? Shouldn't you get someone who, like, actually knows something about bugs and selective breeding and evolution and what not? You are under a lot of pressure and I don't think I'd be able to help a lot. I'd probably-"

"Naruto - you're babbling again," Shino interrupted. Naruto clamped his hand over his mouth to stop the stream of words. "Those things are probably true. But I still want you to be my partner. Would you accept my offer?"

Naruto took his hand away and slowly nodded. "I would be honored to be your partner."

"Thank you, Naruto."

The pair lapsed into silence and watched the sunlight drain from the sky. The stars were starting to appear in force now, the sun's radiance almost completely gone from the sky. Naruto still had a ways to go before he got home, not that he was exactly afraid of the city at night - there were advantages to being home when there was still light in the sky. Most importantly, that way he didn't have to go fumbling for the light switch. Naruto remembered his desire to just make a proximity sensor seal for the lights. But he'd forget by the time he actually sat down to do anything and would probably just pull out another one of Hon's lessons.

"Well, I'll see you later?" Naruto waved. Shino nodded and the two of them parted ways.

Unfortunately before he could return he had other places to visit - as his stomach so kindly reminded him. Even worse, his favorite place in the whole wide world to eat was closed for the week, a consequence of a family emergency that had pulled the owner away from his proper place in existence. Stupid aunt, why did she have to go and die. However Naruto needed to eat, and his fridge was still suffering from its perpetual anorexia, leaving Naruto with few choices.

He could either just not eat or... Naruto dropped down from the upper level walkways to the street below. Naruto hated doing this, it was like he was compromising his core values, betraying himself for his stomach. But when you got to eat, you got to eat, Naruto rationalized. There were other restaurants that served ramen, so maybe he could compromise with himself. Naruto picked a restaurant that looked like it might serve his delicacy of choice and went inside.

"Welcome!" The cook waved from behind the counter, but when he saw Naruto his face fell. Walking over to the sink he started shaking his head. "No. No. No." He washed his hands walked out of the kitchen and proceeded to push Naruto out of the building. "We're not going to be caught with you in here. Thank you very much." And he pushed Naruto out of the door.

Naruto caught himself before he fell as he tumbled out of the door. "So much for 'the customer is god' huh?" He grumbled. Moving down the street he selected another target. Only to be thrown out much more violently. Naruto stuck his tongue out and moved on, but by the third restaurant he started to remember why he didn't eat anywhere but Ichiraku's. He hadn't eaten anywhere else for a long time, and now he remembered why. Restaurants wanted to teach him how to fly.

Yeah, they would welcome anybody and everybody - dangerous killers, assassins, criminals, Gai-sensei - the opinion of the Food, Lodging, and Tourism Bureau of Konohagakure was if they had money and promised not to kill anybody on the premise, they were welcome. Well everybody but a twelve year old who somehow kept a natural disaster inside his stomach. You would think people would try to appease his stomach more, because one day it could just get fed up with holding the thing in and Naruto might just puke up the beast... Naruto didn't know what to think of that; on one hand it was a disgusting visual, on the other hand it would be pretty funny to see the faces of everybody after he did it.

If they just didn't know who he was he could actually get something to eat!

Wait.

Duh. Naruto slapped his hand to his face. Why didn't he think of this earlier? He was a NINJA! As in he went to the NINJA ACADEMY! As in the one that taught the ACADEMY THREE! All right, Naruto tended to try and forget those years of scholastic torture, and he could really only perform one and a half of the set of techniques, but still, forgetting the fact that he could "transform" was a major oversight. One that deserved a suitable expression made by his hand and face.

Naruto tried to appear as nonchalant as possible as he moved toward the dark alleyway - no doubt looking highly suspicious, but it was a start. Once he was out of sight of the busy public thoroughfare he began to mold his chakra and focus on the image he wanted to become. The point here was generic, something not unrecognizable but something almost recognizable. Comfortable but forgettable was what he was going for - not his standard bombshell.

HRHGGHGHRHGHHRHGHRHGHG.

Naruto began the methodical process of unclenching his face. He didn't understand why for most people the transformation jutsu was easy... and painless. Probably just another side effect of jailing this stupid ass fox. Naruto really hoped there was some benefit he got out of this arrangement - otherwise it seemed like a mutually detrimental relationship. Okay, huge amounts of chakra, but really! What good was chakra if he couldn't use it without causing himself great pain. Finally the burning sensation in his cells began to fade and Naruto regained control over his facial features.

Since he had no mirror Naruto could only hope that he looked enough like a middle age man in green robes to pass. Really all he needed was enough to convince the people that he was 'not Naruto.' He was confident that he had made a good enough disguise as long as he didn't talk a lot and there were no doujutsu users.

Returning back to the first restaurant, because hopefully enough time had passed for them to let their guard down, Naruto put his plan into action. The man who had kicked him out before welcomed him warmly enough when he came in and sat down. Looking at the tiles on the wall Naruto saw that indeed there was a chance for ramen, however in this form ordering ramen would only raise their suspicions. Given how they responded to his presence before, Naruto wouldn't put it past them to examine every person who ordered ramen just to make sure it wasn't him. So instead Naruto ordered... well he wasn't exactly sure what he ordered it was just something new and more importantly 'not-ramen.'

"Soo, haven't seen you around here before." Naruto almost froze when the man down the counter spoke up. "New? Visiting? How'd you come about the village?"

"Ahhh, business, actually." Naruto tried to seem calm and collected and he was wildly searching for some explanation. He was going to need to lie his way out of this one like a pro. Please don't ask any more questions, he silently pleaded.

"What kind of business?" The man leaned in, seemingly interested in Naruto's cover story. Naruto forced down his panic and quickly grabbed onto something he at least knew a little about.

"I deal in tea." What? No, that wasn't something he knew anything about at all! Naruto had no idea why that had come out. Maybe because the supply of tea in the library was dwindling. He had been going through a few of Hon's old records to see where he could get some more. Naruto hoped that would be enough to pull one over on this man.

"Tea, really? What kind?"

"Oh, quite a few, mostly rare blends actually. Just came in with a shipment of white tea from the mountains in the Land of Earth. And let me tell you it is some good stuff." Naruto didn't know if that felt forced, volunteering that much information, or just conversationally proud of his work. But anyway his mind was working on putting his story together - he might be able to pull this off.

"I see" The man nodded, "Interesting." The man turned back to his food and then turned back to Naruto. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know if that stuff the Hyuuga grow is any good? I mean they always go on about how they have the best of everything. But really, I don't think it's very good. Objectively, what would you say?"

"Hyuuga? Those are the ones with the- the-" Naruto pointed at his eye and tried to convey a sense of having forgotten a word - something not all that difficult because he had actually forgotten more than once.

"The stuck up ones with the white eyes? That's them." The man answered.

"Ahh, I suppose it depends on your tastes - everything does. In my opinion it is as bitter as their personality." Naruto actually had no idea. There were some really bitter teas in Hon's cabinet but he had no idea if any of them were grown by the Hyuuga. And Naruto knew that some of the Hyuuga were insufferable jerks but Hinata wasn't, so really what he said meant nothing. But it seemed to agree enough with the man's own thoughts to placate him with laughter.

"So who buys 'rare blends' here in Konoha?" The man asked. Naruto ignored him for a second in favor of the plate of food that was put in front of him. Naruto took a bite or two. It wasn't ramen but the shogayaki was good.

"Oh, couple clans buy it for celebrations or negotiations I guess. The Fire Lord sometimes - but he has a thing for matcha teas." Naruto took another bite of his food, but tried to seem conversational at the same time. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. This was a great opportunity to answer some questions that he couldn't get as Naruto. "And this one guy - Senju Hon - he runs a library I think. But I haven't been able to find him, do you know if he's out of town or something?"

"Err. No. He died... a while ago, actually."

"Died? How? What- what happened to his library? It's still there isn't it?"

"Oh ahh yeah." The man seemed a little put off by Naruto's questions, which meant there was something important he was hiding. "I don't know how he died. I didn't go to the funeral. Soo..."

"And the library?" Naruto prompted, after he swallowed another bite, "Did he leave it to somebody? Maybe someone who likes tea?"

The man laughed, and Naruto relaxed just a little bit. He had been getting worried that he was about to blow his cover.

"Well, actually the village council has been trying to take it over for a while now, but there's this, ahhhh, kid," the man said 'kid' with as much contempt as he could muster for a casual conversation, "And if I were you, I wouldn't go trying to sell to him." The man leaned in and got this strange glint in his eye. "There are those who frown upon that kind of thing. I don't know, it will be interesting to see what happens." The man brightened up considerably after he leveled his warning.

"I see," Naruto tried to nod thoughtfully, "Thank you." This disturbed him greatly.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sarutobi, Third Hokage of Konohagakure, the Professor, The God of Shinobi, veteran of two Shinobi World Wars, nearly wept when the weasley man raised his hand. He had seen men die, he had sent men to died, he had killed men, and on the few occasions brushed with death himself, but he had never welcomed death - now here he was, almost wishing that death would find him here. These council meetings were growing longer and longer by the month. They seemed to stretch time out in these strange painful knots of aggravation. Arguments and quarrels and bickering's and spats, negotiations and factions, it was like futility had married frustration and had this institution as their child. It had been years since the council was this antagonistic - actually since just before the Uchiha incident. Luckily, none of the council were still around to draw any unnecessary conclusions... that might not have been completely incorrect.

Sarutobi has convened this monthly council meeting significantly earlier than normal, of the off chance that they might actually conclude their business before the day finished. And yet, here at 10:17 someone was introducing one last piece of business that they had noticeably forgotten during the approval of the agenda. He wanted to nix the thing and just adjourn but the despicable bastard and his faction of the council had garnered enough votes for an emergency addition. It was an illegitimate use for the provision originally meant for developing emergencies, but he couldn't just veto it. Sarutobi might be the most powerful man in the village - but he also had more shackles than most of the prisoners locked away below the ground.

"I will introduce a new proposal for the acquisition and operation of the abandoned library located at 3-6-9-9 Kodaira-"

Sarutobi wanted to put down his head and weep. This smoke-forsaken meeting would be going for a long, long time and go nowhere. Worse than nowhere, it would wrap around upon itself over and over again in an angry whirlwind of useless words. "I'm sorry, councilman, but I believe that this topic has already been settled. And more importantly the library you referenced, the one previously owned by Senju Hon, has successfully passed into the ownership of Uzumaki Naruto."

The Hokage's head jerked up a little. This was new. Well it was new on many levels. Aburame Shibi had never spoken at a council meeting. Hardly anyone ever paid attention to the stoic head of the stoic house. Honestly, they weren't politically significant enough to bother with. But the fact that Shibi had never once spoken - in any meeting - somehow gave strange kind of importance. It was like if Hyuuga Hiashi walked over and back handed somebody and said "da hayll you takn' 'bout." If political moves were like jutsu, Shibi had been storing energy for this one for years. It must be important. The second level of the Hokage's surprise was that Shibi had unleashed his one shot sure-kill political attack on behalf of Uzumaki Naruto. Suddenly, Sarutobi found that he liked the man a great deal more; bugs or no bugs he was going to invite the man to dinner one day.

"I, but - ahh" The weasel of a man struggled for words in his confusion. The Hokage was perfectly fine letting the man fumble and flounder for words because every second he was draining away the plan's energy. Unfortunately Hiashi recovered, saw what was happening, and readied his own political weapons before any terminal damage could be done to the initiative.

"What I think he is trying to point out, Sarutobi-sama," the Hokage noticed the conspicuous absence of his title, not that in most cases he cared a great deal but it was all part of the politics. "Is that Uzumaki Naruto cannot own the library."

"I fail to see your logic" the Hokage answered, "Naruto is a fully fledged ninja of the leaf, entitled to the responsibilities and privileges of one, rights that include land and property ownership."

"Ahh, but that is just it, Hokage-sama," The weasel man had finally found his footing, it was a shame that Shibi's brilliant attack had had so little effect, "You see Uzumaki has not taken on any of the responsibilities of being a genin, in fact all he has done for the past six months is drain our budget with his 'training exercises.' He has not gone on any missions - and we both know that D rank missions don't count - and by all means should have been placed on the inactive duty list weeks ago. A list that we have just voted to clean in order to cut expenditures not twenty minutes ago.

"And we all have to admit that calling the brat a ninja has always been kind of a joke. He didn't even graduate the academy properly. He hasn't been assigned a real team, just that temporary spot on Team 7, which has been shown to be quite capable without him. Really the only reason he was allowed to be called a genin at all was because you went behind our backs because he was another one of your pet mo- projects."

It was a clever slip of the tongue, reminding everyone of the fiasco with Orochimaru. Probably some were even able to connect it to the Uchiha Incident - even if they were the ones who championed Itachi's promotions. The minds of men were twisted enough to deny their own existence. But it was a lancing attack, one that would have to be countered quickly. But Sarutobi couldn't think of a way to parry it. This was definitely a coordinated attack by Hiashi's faction of the council.

"I would disagree, councilman." Suddenly Shibi was talking again, a miracle twice in one night, "My experience with the boy has shown that he has great potential as a ninja. And if my memory serves" here everybody heard an implied 'and it does', "Naruto has been connected to the apprehension of a spy and traitor to the village and the deaths of four Iwanin, one who was an A rank in our own Bingo Books. If anything, he has had more experience as a ninja than any other graduate from his class."

"He was fooled and kidnapped. Hardly experience as a ninja." The man sneered. The Hokage on the other hand noticed the strange looks Hiashi was giving Shibi. Both had been on the tracking squad that had found Naruto the night of Hon's death, and though he had not been there to see it, Sarutobi knew that the sight of a man's face caving in upon itself was not one easily forgotten, nor was the sight of a child's hands covered in blood. Hiashi's faction might be behind this, Danzo might even be helping, but neither could have expected to be reminded - no threatened, by Aburame Shibi of all people - that Naruto could possibly have the power to kill them all. The civilian man with the weasel face was looking around at his fellow guild leaders.

Obviously Hiashi was too deep in this to back out now because he spoke up. "Naruto would be retained for the transition period while the village is adjusting to the new resources and could possibly be hired for further work and research once the acquisition is complete. He might even be able to garner some good will within the village for his selfless actions to protect our home." Sarutobi translated for himself - 'You, you old coot, are going to have to break it to him slowly. We're going to try to not piss him off, and if he's a good boy we might even start selling stuff to him again.' He even caught the strange turn of Hiashi's face at the end to mean 'and we'll lay off for a while, deal?' For the Hokage the answer was quite clearly 'no deal.'

"So what you're saying is..." The Hokage's brain was already beginning to pull up the forms he would be filling out in the coming hours to make everything perfectly legal, "Naruto needs to complete one C rank mission before the roster changes and their duplicates are filed in two weeks."

"What? No I'm saying that-"

"Oh," The Hokage didn't let the weasel man finish, "I forgot to mention that I will be calling a review of the roster changes voted at this meeting. Meaning there will be a two week review session before any of this can be finalized."

"You can't do this!" This time it was fat face - Sarutobi's name for the councilman representing the bakers' guild - voicing his opinion.

"Oh, actually anybody can. And last time I checked I was part of 'anybody'. So I am inviting a two week recess for this meeting. Do I have a second?"

"Second."

"Thank you Aburame-san."

"Meeting recessed." The Hokage slammed his standing stone paper weight down on the table and out of habit the entire council covered their heads. This time it was weasel face that was unlucky enough to get hit with the nearly magical rock. It really was nice that the civilians didn't know that the thing was targeted, the ninja knew, but the civilians only guessed. However it was tradition and it didn't hit someone every time.

"Oh and Aburame-san, remind me after this is all done I would like to invite you to dinner."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." The man bowed and left.

"Now, ANBU!" The Hokage barked, "Wake my secretaries! Get my coffee! We have paperwork to do!" It was begrudgingly admitted by most members of the council that someone bound to do paperwork had never looked so epic. There was almost music playing in the background - a song with lots of bass and drums and trumpets.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

When Naruto finally reached the library he pulled out the lesson he had been working on for about a week on contract seals - lesson thirteen in the 116 lesson sequence that Hon had planned out before his passing. Most of the lessons were just references and page numbers and assignments - but there was still a little bit of his old master in each of them. And Naruto made sure that he had every lesson completely learned before he moved on to the next one - just the way Hon would have wanted it. Sometimes he even went beyond the scope of the lesson and researched other things - occasionally he found he was doing things that were reserved for latter lessons, but Hon probably wouldn't have cared a great deal. In fact, he probably would have applauded Naruto's initiative. He had always encouraged Naruto to move beyond the basics and learn the minutia of things, to really understand things. He would never move on until all of Naruto's questions had been answered.

This inquisitive nature was what had spurred Naruto to begin learning more about the "Blood Style" line of jutsus. It had only been a passing mention in the section about blood contracts - but it had intrigued Naruto. And thanks to the lesson plans, he now had a reference for where to find the scroll that Hon had loaned him before to learn Bloody Tips.

"Blood," The scroll's introduction read, "Has become something of a Taboo tool for modern ninja's because of its nature. However that same nature that makes it something unwanted is the very thing that makes it as versatile a tool as it can be. Of all the mediums for chakra to flow through or be stored in blood is the most capable. It is the single most conductive material for chakra to flow through and is one of the few things that has a high storage capacity and easy extraction properties. Both of these unique qualities of the Blood-Element come directly from its proximity to the living body. The system of arteries, veins and ventricles through which blood flow closely follows the motion of chakra through the body. Blood is constantly being exposed to the chakra found within a living body and as such has developed certain properties. Some of these properties have been exploited through medical ninjutsu - for example the ability to move clotted blood with certain forms of chakra. However many possible uses for blood have been discredited, like its use in seal making, or even as a medium for jutsu's like water is used, because of its vital nature.

"For many reasons have ninja's generally shied away from using blood as commonly as it should be used. Importantly blood loses its chakra conductivity quickly after death. Why this is, is still debated, and we will discuss later some hypotheses that try to explain this phenomenon. "

The - probably insane - author went on for some time about blood before settling down and actually talking about the theory of bloodstyle. Something Naruto was surprisingly already familiar with - perhaps because Hon had already taught him Bloody Tips. And then finally came the real deal - jutsu. It started out with Bloody Tips, and Red Palms - both of which were the most basic kind of jutsu and existed almost solely to illustrate the absolute basics of the Blood Style.

It was growing late when Naruto began reading about the Bloody Signs Technique. Another basic technique to illustrate the basics of controlling one's blood outside the body. However what the author was unaware of, was it could in fact be a very useful jutsu - especially with seal making.

Naruto walked over to his bedroom door to test out his hypothesis. If writing and seal making were as similar as they seemed...

"_Blood Style: Red Palms"_ In Naruto's own chaotic style, too much blood rose from his hand. Instead of a consistent crimson film coating his palm - drops of deep dark blood dripped to the floor. Naruto ran his bloody hand along the door jamb streaking the wall with dark blood. Carefully Naruto formed an image of the seal he wanted to form - trying to push out of his mind where the cleaning supplies were to clean this off if it didn't work. _"Blood Style: Bloody Signs" _The drips and drops of blood that were running down the door suddenly began to crawl backward. The smudges swirled on Naruto's wall and slowly the locking seal began to form out of his own blood. When the seal content was fully formed - the blood clotted and dried instantly.

Now for the real test.

"HRRRGHGHEHEHGHERHHGHERHGHEHREHGH!" Naruto growled as he tried to pry his bedroom door open. To no avail.

"Hmm. Guess that worked." Naruto shrugged. "Release."

The seal hissed for a second as it unlocked. Naruto went back into the reading room and put away his supplies, rubbing his tingling hand. On the way back he shut off the lights and made for his bedroom.

However, when he pulled at the handle he found that the door was locked. That was odd - was it already locked when he had put the seal on earlier? Naruto re-released the previous locking seal that Hon had put on the door and tried again. Nope.

"What?" Naruto poked his own seal and sent a burst of chakra through to release the seal... again. The sound was definitely a hiss as it unlocked.

Nope. Still locked.

"Oh for the love of Ramen." Naruto walked over and flipped on the light and walked back. Nope the seal looked right. He released it again but listened very carefully. It unlocked alright. But it didn't. "Oh what the heck?"

Tried another time - this was the crazy coming out in him he knew but seriously, the seal was right! This time Naruto heard something he hadn't heard before - a quiet click almost simultaneously with the much louder hiss. Naruto's eyes went wide and flicked up to his seal. It should be somewhere around the methods for... Naruto swore.

"Oh, come on!" He jammed his finger at the seal and tried to unlock his door.

Hiss-click.

Hiss-click.

Hiss-click.

"Erg!"

hissclickhissclickhissclickhissclickhissclickhissc lickhissclickhissclickhissclickhissclickhissclickh issclickhissclickhissclickhissclickhissclickhisscl ickhissclickhissclickhissclickhissclickhissclickhi ssclick.

"ARG!"

Frustrated Naruto walked to the back room where Hon kept the "special seals" and retrieved a simple debugging scroll. These were tough to make and Naruto hadn't actually learned to make them yet, but debugging seals were like the crowbars of seal making - or as Naruto called crowbars "fix-it sticks." There were lots of things you could do with a crowbar: you could pry things, bash things, hit things, loosen things, pull things, push things, send things flying, threaten things, light things on fire... Heck there was even a book in the library called "One Million and One Uses for a Crowbar." Okay, so the analogy between debugging seals and crowbars fell apart about there because while there were a million and one uses for a crowbar, there was only one use for a debugging seal: to figure out where you messed up making a seal.

Essentially what debugging seals did was fragment a seal into its component parts, statements, and allowed one to go through each statement individually and see if it worked or not. Very helpful when dealing with stupid things like this.

Naruto ripped open the scroll and slapped it up against the miscreant seal - transcribing it instantly. Frustrated and tired, Naruto stomped back into the reading room and began to debug the seal - step by step by step.

Now the real problem with seal making is that it is exactly the opposite of how everybody assumed it to be. Most people assume - wrongly - that once you become a seal master you can just wave your hands and change the world. "Make a seal that stops people from bugging me." "Make a seal that lets me live forever." "Make a seal that teleports me wherever I throw my kunai." "Make a seal that transports a twelve year old boy to a remote field at five-flipping-thirty every morning to deal with freaks in green spandex." NO! It doesn't work like that. While yes, there were "seal masters" who did those kinds of seals and make it look like eating ramen - without brushes sometimes too - the majority of them used "intent" based seals... and some weird higher level sealing method Naruto hadn't learned yet. But the problem with intent-based seals was their - fairly predictable - tendency to go... wrong. No matter how strongly you "intend" something to happen there are about a bajillion other required secondary intentions that you may or may not actually be intending. Like if you intend to make a locking seal, you should probably intend to make it unlockable too. For another example - one of the best intention based seals Naruto had ever seen (making him wonder if it wasn't actually just a memorized content based seal) - was to be found on his stomach. There were some pretty awesome things in it... however there were other problems that made it irksome; like leakage! Yeah sure, it's great that you feed the inevitable entropic leakage of energy into the boys' chakra system so that he can be strong and powerful. However there was nothing about how the particular boy's body might handle an inherently foreign type of energy. Really! Humans don't like having alien things in their body, physical or spiritual - hence the biggest problem of genjutsu: how to convince people to believe despite the "chakra allergy" reaction. Seriously it was kind of a wonder that his "Chakra-Immune System" hadn't killed Naruto off already.

Naruto stopped his internal rant and took a deep breath as he started the debugging for the seventh time.

"Oh GAWED DANNGED!" Naruto screamed when he reached the breakpoint that kept failing.

Table flipping was becoming the most attractive course of action at this point. Naruto stared down at the transcription checking two identical statements. "See! Look, they are the same fricken' thing! Exactly the same. Why does this one work and this one not! GAAA"

Naruto brought his eye down, hovering an inch above the paper - maybe he could scare the answer out of the seal by making it afraid of his giant burning blue eye of doom (trademark pending).

"Wait. Is that... Oh you have got to be kidding me! Really!" The thinnest of line connected two methods making it seem like the first statement didn't have a proper termination. Probably a drop of blood had gotten caught in the wood grain when he was using the Bloody Signs technique. The result was a seal that locked immediately after unlocking. Naruto sighed and applied the chakra repellent "white out" and fixed the termination style. This time when he ran the debug it worked perfectly.

"Gawed dang it. Stupid seals, fifteen minutes to make the dang thing and four hours to debug the stupidest little thing." Such were the drawbacks of content based seals. Naruto fixed his blood seal on the door and unlocked it. "Click." Of course, now it worked.

Naruto didn't even feel like changing clothes as he just fell into bed. Naruto was asleep as soon as his head hit the grass.

Wait.

What?

"Arise Naruto-kun! Let us meet the sunrise! The YOUTH of the morning is upon us!"

"GAAAA! RAMEN! Please strike me down now! I can't handle this anymore!"

"Naruto," Lee asked as he walked into the clearing, "When you say that, I feel like some unyouthful catastrophe will befall us... musically?"

"I don't know." Naruto was almost weeping in frustration, "but one day it's going to happen to me. And I. Will. Be. Happy."

"Naruto?" Gai-sensei approached. "Your YOUTH seems to have soured this morning. I understand that many mornings you are dissatisfied with the YOUTH of the morning, for you enjoy the YOUTH of the nights, but today your YOUTH seems particularly unYOUTHful."

"I... my... out... room..." Naruto mumbled.

"You made out with yourself in your room Naruto?" Lee's massive brows knit themselves into a forehead sweater. "Were you practicing for something? Did you ask one of your Youthful clones to assist?"

"NO! I said I locked myself out of my bedroom. I was messing around with a new jutsu and had to fix it... I just got into bed when I was pulled here. Why is it the first thing you think of is me making out with one of my clones? Which one do you think I would be making out with?"

"The Youthful one known as Psycho!"

Naruto stared Lee. The answer was so straightforward and... wrong. "Lee, it's still a clone of me! It might have long hair, but it's still me, a guy. I'm not like that! Speaking of which. Gai-sensei, do you have any idea what is up with my clones – they've been acting strange recently - okay well stranger than normal."

"Naruto, your YOUTHful clones are a mystery to all, including myself."

"Oh well. It was worth a shot. Anyway, so I got no sleep last night at all."

"Ahh, Naruto, that is most unYOUTHful. In order to stoke the fires of YOUTH to their most YOUTHful potential we must YOUTHfully rest our YOUTHful bodies with YOUTHful sleep of YOUTH."

Some mornings with Gai were better than others. Today was apparently YOUTH day. There were just these random times when Gai would go off spouting YOUTH like every third word. YOUTH days were actually kind of fun to watch because every YOUTH was accompanied by a spasmodic movement of the left arm and this strange movement of the head... like he was trying to advertise some YOUTHful product of YOUTH.

"Yeah, I meant to do that. But I wanted to sleep in my youth!..ful... bed" Naruto shivered trying to fend off the urge to look at the nonexistent camera.

"I have just come up with a YOUTHful idea. Even YOUTHful people like us must let our bodies free themselves of burning tension, so that we may bend like YOUTHful spring stalks with the power of trees. Come! We shall rejuvenate our YOUTH. You shall enjoy this Naruto, Lee, it will be most YOUTHful most..."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Gaaaay."

"Shut up, duck-butt. All we did was go to a spa together - it's just like going to an onsen. You do that, and it's not gay."

"Yeah, but I don't get massages alongside Lord of the Spandex." Sasuke shot back, shivering at the very idea of being in the same room as a less-than-halfway-clothed Gai-sensei. They were waiting for Cockeye-sensei to arrive - like most mornings now that Naruto had passed most of his private lessons. Naruto had arrived a little bit later than normal thanks to Gai-sensei's special activity.

"I don't even know if he was in the same room as me. It was so dark in there I couldn't see anything. Darn Hyuuga - can't they at least leave enough light that a normal person could at least see halfway."

"Bullshit." Sakura piped up from her post next to Sasuke. Naruto flinched, preparing himself for the beating. Except it didn't come. Sasuke and Naruto looked over at Sakura confused. Sakura normally only swore when someone was in immediate danger of bruising - usually Naruto. This time however she was making no motion to throttle the boy.

"Err. No, really. The Hyuuga have this super-secret ninja spa where they give these super relaxing massages and manicures and pedicures and sure rejuvenating tea and have nice soothing music and those funny bamboo things that go _doink_ and they keep the place almost pitch-flippen-black. There really is a place like that, I swear."

"Gaayy." Sasuke whispered to himself. Naruto wanted to point out that Sasuke got manicures too but he was too riled up about Sakura at this point to care. He thought he could finally start to connect with her if they shared interests - like spas. Obviously not.

Sakura shook her head, "Oh, no. I completely believe that part of the story - in fact the Hyuuga's Hidden Spa was ranked the best spa overall in last month's _Better Beauty. _If you can find it - and if they let you in - supposedly it's the best thing since - "

"Ramen." Naruto corrected her miss used colloquialism before she inevitably inserted the completely wrong referenced to pre-proportioned loaves of bread.

"Whatever," Sakura continued, clearly miffed at the interruption, "What I can't believe is they actually let you - you of all people into the place. That is total bullshit. There is no way on earth that the Hyuuga clan let you into their private secret spa resort."

"And why is it so hard to believe?" Naruto's voice squeaked in indignation.

"Well because... because... because you're... you."

"Wonderfully astute statement," Naruto felt himself slip into the voice that Hon used when he was making fun of people. He couldn't get it perfectly right, it still sounded kind of petty - but he felt kind of petty at the moment, "Clearly you could only have reached that conclusion with thorough and deep contemplation. You have ascended to the highest peak of reasoning for such a simple and true answer. It is clearly the product of a glimpse at the true nature of the universe."

"Hey, if you want to get fancy with me, idiot, I can get fancy with my fist." Sakura threatened raising her fist to add punch to her meaning.

"You couldn't hit me if you tried." Naruto lied, knowing full well that Sakura could in fact hit him - very hard - even if she wasn't trying. The pink haired girl had a tenacity that surpassed even the highly trained ANBU at times and a left hook that hurt like hell. Maybe if he could get a good enough head start he could wear her out - but at this distance... fat luck. But he couldn't exactly back down now could he?

"You two fight like an old married couple."

"EEEEEWWWWWUUUUUUU!" Sakura jumped back in disgust.

"Really?" Naruto brightened up. "Whatever. Point is, I feel great - and nothing you say can ruin that - because I got one of the best massages in town. In fact, I think you're jealous."

"Ahh, so Gai finally gave you one of his famous massages." Cockeye-sensei appeared on the bridge halfway through the conversation surprising a sum total of zero people. After several weeks of it happening, everybody really rather expected it. Naruto was pretty sure that Kakashi was just waiting for the most awkward part of the conversation so that he could appear and totally derail everything. Like right now for instance.

"What, no!" Naruto jumped, "Gai took me to a Hyuuga spa - a Hyuuga gave me a massage, not Gai."

"Sakura's got a point, Naruto. There are probably only two Hyuuga what would touch you for reasons other than your immediate death or dismemberment, and one of them is still sticking his feet in his mouth. Besides, what he didn't tell you is that Gai actually works there when he isn't training or doing missions."

"Gai is a masseuse?" Naruto cocked his head at the revelation.

Kakashi nodded. "Gai spent several years studying bones, muscles, and the chakra system to perfect his taijutsu. One of the practical ways he keeps his mind sharp - aside from screaming about youth and rigorous physical exercise - is with hands on experience with other people's muscles bones and chakra, in other words, massages. And even I have to admit, he's really good."

Behind Naruto, Sasuke was struggling to keep his face stoic and his snickering soft. "Gaaaaaaayyyyyyy!"

"Can it. You sound like a walrus." Naruto snarled over his shoulder.

Silence descended on the group as they stared at Naruto. The silence grew longer and longer and the awkward level rose until finally it was palpable. "Naruto," Sakura finally broke the silence, "What's a walrus?"

Naruto thought about it for several seconds. "You know, I don't know. It's something Hon mentioned several times and I guess I just imagined that was what it sounded like. I think it's this fat, blubbery, aquatic mammal thing."

"DON'T YOU DARE CALL SASUKE FAT!" Sakura's fist suddenly occupied the space where Naruto's gut had just been and he was sailing off the bridge. Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura all watched him land on the far bank. Naruto was on the verge of consciousness by the time they decided to walk over and check on him. He was almost going to wake up when he realized that - despite the great massage (even if it was from the raging green beast of Konoha) he was still really tired. So his mostly unconscious mind decided that further unconsciousness was the way to go and he fell back into the blackness.

"Hmm, well. I guess we will practice how to complete missions with an injured teammate." Kakashi said, once they decided Naruto was not going to be waking up anytime soon. "Sakura you pick him up. Let's go get our mission for the day."

"What? Why do I have to carry him?"

"Lesson number two for today: take responsibility for your own mess. You knocked him out, you get to deal with him."

"Cockeye-sensei," Sasuke asked, "What was the first lesson for today?"

"Gai-sensei - even though he's a freak - gives really good massages."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Yeah," Sakura looked away from her injured teammate, a little blush appearing on her cheeks, "Sorry about... you know...dropping you."

"Wait, you dropped me?" Naruto tried to look at Sakura but the full body cast that had appeared around him when he woke up here in the hospital kept him from doing so. "I don't remember that."

"You were unconscious at the time." Sasuke answered from his dedicated corner of the room. Someone had once tried to put a chair there... its ashes were returned the next time Naruto checked out of his own dedicated hospital room. Naruto earning the hospital room was a significantly more involved process than Sasuke's corner. The nurses practically gave him the floorboards he walked on. Naruto just occupied this particular room so often that nobody else - including coma patients - would go anywhere near the place. Thus Naruto just kind of inherited it... at a fairly high rent.

"I was? I don't remember, why was I unconscious?"

"Superior head trauma." Kakashi supplied.

"Superior head trauma? Don't you mean severe?"

"Nope. Superior. For whatever reason this hospital records your injuries with quality assessments. Sakura here has the highest quality rating in the village."

Sasuke looked up at Kakashi, "I'm not a medic-nin, but I think that's just a little wrong... on a lot of different levels."

"Thank you. Somebody else gets it."

"Well, regardless of the quality of the injury, you should be clear to leave anytime you like."

"Then what is the full body cast for anyway?" Naruto wanted to slap somebody. He was stuck here not moving and the only thing his body wanted to do was move. And he did not like being unable to move, it freaked him out a little bit. Really, the hospital wanted him gone as fast as possible, so what did they do but lock him up with plaster so he couldn't move! He couldn't very well tottle out of this place when he couldn't even scratch his own nose. "Let me out let me out lemmeout!"

"Ah, that's better." The cast shattered after Naruto's spirited flailing finally took effect. The only problem of course being: his conspicuous lack of clothing. When they put you in a full body cast - even if you are the most despised patient in the ward, they still don't wrap you up with your clothes on. Sakura flared pink, so pink that you couldn't tell where her hair started and her massive forehead ended. Naruto picked up his ratty clothes from the edge of the room where they had been unceremoniously deposited by the attendants and began to slip them on. "Note to self: get new underwear" Naruto mumbled to himself as he pulled on the boxers. It took a little bit longer than he would have liked to become presentable again - mostly due to the hole in his coat that Naruto's arm kept confusing for the sleeve.

"Well then, shall we go?" Kakashi tilted his head in the way that seemed to suggest a smile... or at least something more familiar than a stony mask of indifference.

"Yes, please. I'm starving!" Naruto leaped at the prospect of food. "I didn't get lunch, and I can't even remember what I had for breakfast." Suddenly Naruto stopped. "Wait. I can't remember breakfast! I have a concussion! I slept while having a concussion! Nononononononnoo!"

"Relax dweeb. You didn't have breakfast, remember? You were too busy getting felt up by Gai-san."

"Oh," Naruto stopped freaking out, "That's right. And I wasn't getting felt up! It was a deep muscle massage!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say dweep." Sasuke smirked just before he disappeared through the ninja-exit of the room. Naruto was in hot pursuit clearing the window not a second after his teammate.

"My, my. So spirited." Kakashi watched his third pupil rush out of the room screaming threats at Naruto should he harm the Uchiha. Kakashi paused before he left the room. "Boy, do I sound old."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Hinata paused and looked up at the characters emblazoned above the front entrance to the Library. There was Naruto's Stamp - the symbol that had replaced Hon's the day that Naruto inherited the library - but underneath it, where the other libraries in town wrote their name, like Konoha General Library, or The Academy Library, or even the Hyuuga Clan Library, was the name "The Bastard's Collection."

She had seen these characters before, and had meant to ask Naruto about them, but... Naruto was busy. He was always doing something whenever she would come to visit. But that was okay, she loved to watch him work. Oh, she read books and scrolls too, but a lot of the time - when the book was slow or hard to understand - she would look up and watch Naruto struggle with his lessons, or projects, or whatever he was working on.

Libraries were always quiet, even the library at home seemed to have a special kind of quiet, different from the quiet of the clan compound. But Naruto was never exactly quiet - he wasn't loud, but he was always mumbling things to himself, or tapping the table, or grumbling. Sometimes, usually when he forgot she was there because he was so focused, he would rant to himself, going on long confusing speeches peppered with strange explanations when he got frustrated with something. Sometimes it was just too funny to watch and she would giggle a little bit and he would stop and look a little embarrassed and apologized. Hinata did not think that Naruto needed to apologize, it was part of what made him special. No, libraries were always quiet - just that this library was a fairly loud quiet.

She would ask him about the name today, Hinata decided. She promised herself that she would do it for real this time. As she opened the door she heard Naruto call out from the reading room "Hey, Hinata!" Somehow he always knew when someone had opened the door, even if he couldn't see them. Hinata slipped off her shoes and pulled on the slippers that she had brought. The library was odd - even though it was technically a public library it still seemed right to take off her shoes like she did at home. Along the wall there were slippers for other people to wear if they didn't bring their own.

"The scroll you were reading last time is by the front desk." Naruto said as she walked into the reading room. He was pointing over to a small scroll on a shelf above the giant library scroll. Apparently, Naruto could find any book in the library by using that scroll - but she had never actually seen him use it. He was always standing up and wandering through the maze of shelves returning minutes later with a new book or scroll, reading it as he walked back.

"Would you like some tea, Hinata?"

Hinata nodded and Naruto slipped into the hallway that led into the kitchen. Hinata retrieved the scroll that she hadn't finished reading last time, _A Blight of Fire: Hero's and Heroine's during the Land of Fire's Founding Age. _Naruto had suggested it and it really was quite interesting, especially the chapter about Hidaka Mayumi - she was kind of Hinata's hero. It was amazing the way that she stood up to an entire army and forced them to march around their village instead of through it. She was so strong and brave and confident but kind and loving and caring - Hidaka Mayumi was what Hinata dreamed of being.

Before Naruto returned, Hinata snuck a look at what he was working on. She didn't understand what he was learning - and a while ago she stopped understanding a lot of what the characters meant. It was kind of like trying to read a different language full of strange words that meant strange things. But he understood it obviously - or at least understood it eventually.

Naruto returned from the kitchen with a tea tray but almost dropped it when he caught one of the shafts of light coming through the upper windows. Hinata tried not to laugh as Naruto struggled to regain his balance and keep the tea set on the tray at the same time. He eventually accomplished the task in his own sort of comical way. Finally he set the tray down on a table that wasn't covered with books and paper and poured a cup of tea. "Here you go," he said handing a cup to her. She took a sip of the delicious tea, set the cup down and fixed one for Naruto.

Hinata had had to drink a lot of tea in her life and for the most part she didn't particularly like the stuff. Especially the rich but bitter tea that the clan always insisted on serving. Supposedly the clan actually owned the farm that grew the tea, and had she any hope of actually becoming her father's heir she would try to grow different tea. Naruto on the other hand had so many different kinds of tea. She didn't know where he got them but he had sweet red teas and sour yellow teas and dozens of different colors and flavors of herbal teas. He was still a little clumsy making the teas - but they were still delicious.

The pair lapsed into silence for a little bit. Naruto picked up his cup and stood over his table covered in books and scrolls and paper. He set the cup down carefully away from any of the books or scrolls and started moving the papers around. He pointed to one book and then to another, mumbling to himself. Finally his face brightened up, he picked up his pen carefully writing down his own personal notes.

"Um, Naruto-kun," Hinata finally mustered the courage to ask her question, "why is your library called... the - the..."

"Shiseiji no shushu? The Bastard's Collection?" Naruto looked up from his work. Hinata couldn't tell what the look on his face meant. She nodded, glad that he knew what she meant even if she couldn't say it herself. "Okay, ummm, where to start." He murmured.

"Back before there was the idea of a public lending library, individuals who like books would gather together these collections of books and some of them would get famous and earn names. Then groups, like clans and temples and villages, started trying making their own. One of these collections of books was called the Bastards Collection - so called because the person who started the collection was the illegitimate son of the head of the Uchiha clan. The founder of the collection - whose name I can't remember right now - wanted to help out his clan so he started gathering together books and histories and writing his own. When he died he passed the collection on to a dear friend of his, the unrecognized child of an Uchiha and a member of the Senju clan. That guy was apparently pretty instrumental in getting Konohagakure started - but his name has been lost thanks to Madara and Hashirama and their over inflated egos. Then Hon inherited the collection because he spent a lot of time here thanks to his own infirmity. And then Hon passed it on to me.

"The name kind of fits though doesn't it? I mean a bastard started it but it's been owned by a man rejected because of his birth, a man shunned because of his infirmity, and me - an orphan." Naruto finished and poured Hinata another cup of tea. "I don't know why, but I kind of like it though. Maybe because it's almost like the name is saying 'look and see what we can do, we will earn your acceptance despite what you think.' I'm going to become Hokage someday and earn everybody's respect whether they like it or not."

Hinata felt warm inside as she watched Naruto's determined smile.

"So, Shino told me that your team is going on a mission tomorrow?"

And her stomach felt like it dropped out of her body. She had actually come to tell Naruto that very thing. She had been so excited to tell him about her mission, but Shino had beaten her to it. "Umm, yeah." She couldn't look at Naruto for a moment. She was afraid she might start crying.

"You're going to have to tell me all about it. Okay?"

"Huh? What." Hinata suddenly felt hot blood pumping into her cheeks.

"Yeah. It must be great getting to actually go out on a mission. You know, leave town and see new sights and meet new people. I've never actually left the village before - I mean I kind of know what's out there - but there is a world of difference between reading about it and actually going out and seeing it. And on a mission there are all sorts of danger and mystery. You never know what is going to happen next, like the adventures in books. I wish I knew what it was like..." Naruto sighed and looked down at his papers. For a second a bitter frown passed across his face.

"I don't know anything about those kinds of things." Hinata mumbled. She really didn't know anything about adventure. She had only left the village once, and she had been too young - and unconscious - to remember anything. The clan had not let her leave the village after that incident.

"No. But you will, or at least you'll know more than I do." And silence fell upon the pair. "Oh! Hey! I know!" He jumped up and rushed down the hallway. Hinata waited. He tended to do this strange thing, without explanation whatsoever. In fact you could pretty much divide Naruto's actions in half: the benign actions he would be more than happy to explain for hours what he was doing, the dangerous kind he told you less than you wanted to know. So Hinata was not just a little afraid when Naruto came rushing back into the room carrying a stack of papers. A stack of seals.

_Please don't be explosive notes, please don't be explosive notes, _Hinata chanted to herself. She had nowhere near Naruto's amazing recovery ability, so a random explosion was not in her definition of fun.

"Hinata, when you're on your mission would you mind field testing some of these proximity sensor seals. I've been meaning to test them, but it doesn't exactly work to check for all population within 1000 feet in the middle of the village."

"Well, I don't..." Hinata said nervously. Naruto's seals still did weird things, especially the untested ones. She didn't want to mess up her first mission because she blew something important up with one of Naruto's seals, but she also didn't want to turn Naruto down. That would be wrong. However failing the mission would be bad too. But she didn't want to disappoint Naruto, nor her teammates.

"They won't blow up or anything, Hinata. I promise. I was just thinking maybe they could be helpful, you know... that way you didn't have to be using your Byakugan all the time to check for danger. I mean I know they work, but I don't know how accurate they are. Your team can check if they are good. Please, you're the only one I can ask."

"Oh." Hinata hadn't thought of that. Naruto might actually be doing this for her protection and comfort. She didn't know why she didn't think about that earlier. Naruto wasn't the kind of person to ask for those kinds of selfish requests, it was wrong of her doubt him. Plus he was trusting her to help him. He was asking her because he trusted her, and she didn't want to harm that precious, wonderful trust. "O-okay," her hand trembled a little bit - with nervousness and joy - as she took the papers from the table.

After that Naruto returned to his work, and Hinata - having nothing better to do - began to read more about the Heroes and Heroines of the Land of Fire's Founding Age. Time wore on and the sunlight crept up the walls of the reading room, until finally Hinata knew her father would be expecting her soon. "Ummm, thank you for your hospitality, Naruto-kun," she said as she bowed.

"Oh, not at all. You're welcome here any time. I can save that scroll for you again if you'd like." Naruto offered. "And good luck with your mission."

"Thank you." Hinata bowed again, took the seals she promised to test, and turned to go home. After she left though, Hinata got the strange feeling that she was being watched. Glancing back she saw Naruto standing in the door to the library, watching her. She jumped a little bit and hurried on. Why though? Why did he have such a serious face?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Hokage-sama. You have irate civilian inbound."

"Irate citizen? But I haven't done anything yet!"

"Not citizen sir. Self-absorbed visitor complaining about a mission classification."

"He thinks we're over charging him?"

"Not exactly." The ANBU disappeared with a puff of smoke a second before the aforementioned irate civilian burst through the door. He certainly did not look happy. Then again he didn't look exactly sober either. The bottle in the man's hand was clearly less than half full and by the smell of him several of its kin had died protecting this one. On the other hand, what was left of Sarutobi's nose told him that the stuff was not cheap, despite its unceremonious presentation. Nor was the man clothed to be a poor street drunk. Drinking was probably more of a sport to the man than a lifeline, and he appeared rather talented. He came prepared to any table with a competitive girth and likely a strong appetite too. He had a weakness for the color plum and funny hats. In the right light he could have passed as a grumpy pig or a really big pug.

"Yeah, what can I do you for?" Sarutobi drew deep from his pipe and puffed out a smoke ring. There was something very cool about the way the light slipped through the vines and made lines across his face. He suddenly wished he was wearing black and not this dirtied up white. He also wished the man was a woman who was trying to find the man who killed her husband... Unfortunately this was the wrong genre and the pudgy man wouldn't play along with the Hokage's noir moment.

"Are you in charge around here?" He demanded.

Sarutobi raised an eyebrow. "That's what they tell me at least. Can you be helped?"

"No. Yes. What?" The man was confused or the liquor was playing merry go round with his thoughts, two equally viable options given the huge hiccup that punctuated his statement. But he quickly shook it off and regained his dissatisfied temperament. "I demand to know why you reclassified request for a B rank mission and instead saddled me with a bunch of genins going on a C rank mission."

"So what you're asking is why did we assign a more appropriate mission rank, and gave you a major discount?" Oh, this was the poor sap he had given Naruto's first C rank mission - first mission in general actually - too.

"Yes. No. What?" Probably the liquor this time.

"Most people normally demand that their missions cost less and have higher priority. But you specifically want a job that cost more and will take more time to find a suitable candidate for." The Hokage had to admit that it was a little funny watching the man's head spin round and round. He normally didn't like lying - no this wasn't actually lying, it was telling the truth creatively... to a drunk man... who had become his unwitting pawn. Perfectly moral.

"Your stupid rookies would get me killed!" The man slammed his huge meaty hand down on the desk at the word "get." Sarutobi expected he meant to hit the table on the word "killed" but misjudged the amount of time that it would take his stubby little arm to reach the wood surface. Several stacks of paper leaped of the table and Sarutobi wanted to wish them a bon voyage and not see them again for another month. Alas several ANBU appeared in his office at that very second, two with weapons ready to slice the piggy man into pork chops, two to begin reforming the mountains of paperwork, and one with a doctored copy of the mission in question. ANBU secretaries were the greatest.

"Ah, thank you. Now let's see here." The Hokage said reading down through the paper, "It says here that your B rank mission request was downgraded to a C rank because - and I quote - 'It is utterly ridiculous to suggest that there are actually demons on this road.' I am inclined to agree with my assistant, the last record of a petty demon was years ago on the other side of the world. The majority of them were stored away decades ago, shortly after the second shinobi war. Besides, this whole "demon" thing is likely just a ruse set up by the Uotone gang that recently has set up shop along your route. A genin team - particularly the assigned team - should be more than sufficient for any trouble you might encounter."

"What? What part of demon did you not get?"

"There is no demon."

"Yes there is! I know there is! I have seen it."

Sarutobi threw up his hands, making sure to knock even more paper to the ground (hoping some of it would fall in the wastebasket out of his life). "And that is proof that there is no real demon. Petty demons can't maintain physical form for more than a couple days at most before they need to find a host. Even if there was a demon when you journeyed here it is either dead or inside a forest animal by now. Any genin should be able to easily kill even a demon possessed deer."

"Get me a new team! I have that right."

Sarutobi's voice dropped back into its comfortable rasp, "No, Urikawa-san. You do not have that right. You do however have the right to retract your mission and try your hand alone. However, if you are really that worried, a Jonin of the highest caliber will be joining the genin. You will be perfectly safe. I guarantee it. You will have the opportunity to meet your protection tomorrow afternoon. Now please, leave my office before the nice men in the black hoods take you away."

"What men are you... oh these nice men in the black hoods. Is this how you treat your customers? Don't touch me! Huh, Ho-ka-ge?"

"Only the drunk ones. Now if you will run along, I have paperwork to do. Thank you." He said not meaning the thank you at all. Sarutobi sighed after the door closed and slumped back into his chair. He didn't remember standing up, odd. He was getting too old for this kind of thing. He probably shouldn't have picked this man and his mission, he was obviously some noble visiting the village and there were bound to be repercussions - there always were when dealing with stuck up nobles - but it was the only mission he could change on such short notice. Those nobles were always the same, they went around parading their money, flaunting their power, hiding behind poor substitutes worth much more than themselves when it came time to settle up.

However the man had mentioned something very interesting. Something that reminded him of the last thing Hon had ever sent him.

"Captain?" Sarutobi summoned the leader of the ANBU posted to his office. "Make sure there are no eyes on this room until I leave."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"No eyes, captain."

The ANBU paused for a second, but nodded, "Understood, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi sighed and waited the several seconds that it would take the undisclosed number of ANBU to clear out of their hiding places before he got up and walked to one of his own secret hiding spots. Throughout the years that this office had been occupied so many secrets had been made and hidden within these walls. Literally, he was still coming across new compartments in the strangest places left by his predecessors. The ANBU were aware of most of them, even the ones that he had left during his first term in the office. But many of the fourth's compartments - hidden by space-time seals - still remained hidden. Like the one he was reaching into right now.

Naruto had a lot of paperwork connected with him, a lot of paperwork. Enough to devote several filing cabinets to his name. And that was only the legal paperwork; beyond the medical reports, expense accounts, ANBU reports, progress reports, damage claims, legislation, mission briefs, bills, event reports, official complaints, and other miscellaneous papers there was another ton of paperwork that no one wanted to admit having on the boy. Including the continents of this space-time hatch. Here was hidden the papers that "didn't" exist about Uzumaki Naruto, heir to Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, heir to the Bastard Collection, the only student of Senju Hon, and so on. His cabinet was right next to the place where the greatest treasure of the Office was stored: The Definitive Collection of Cheap Adult Fiction in All the World.

The scroll that Sarutobi removed from the freaky hole in space time had been delivered to him from Hon the night before his death. It contained the fruits of Hon's extravagant research and might possibly change the ninja system - if it ever got outside of this office. Sarutobi had become very good at keeping secrets over the years, it was almost second nature now. This information would not get to the council, no matter how much they pestered him. (Not that they were going to pester him for this, when they were all sure that it was to be found in Naruto's "Bastard's Collection.")

Sarutobi wasn't sure if he believed what Hon said here. But here was a chance to test it, and maybe this would turn out for the best.

Or there could be a smoldering crater where the Land of Fire once stood, either way it solved a problem.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Onyx: Whelp, there you have it. Chapter one of the second book of the Librarian Chronicles. If you're wondering, no it does not have a fancy name, and yes the rest of Part I will be posted in this same story. So on to other questions.

Deadpan: You missed us.

Onyx: Excuse me? I did what?

Deadpan: You missed us, you specifically put us in every chapter up until this one. You missed us.

Onyx: You're exaggerating. Surely I don't have to rely on you that much for comic support? Besides, I have plans for you, wonderful, little clones.

Psycho: Plans?

Onyx: Oh look! I have just used my magic Narrator Powers to make you all go away! How silly of me? Oh well.

Onyx: Actually I think I will take this time to address a common theme in the reviews (all of which are loved) from Book one. Several of you commented on my portrayal of Naruto - even calling it Canon. First off, I haven't watched the first bit of Naruto for a long time, but I'm pretty sure that my rendering pales in comparison to the actual thing. Secondly, I've actually taken those complaints as a complement. This fic is, yes, a way for me to spew ideas into my own little version of the universe, but it is also a way for me to address some problems that I have with a lot of the Naruto fics that I have read. The two most obvious ones being a) Naruto's that are pretty much OC that only retain their name and b) power creep.

Onyx: Just a little peek into my mind (as scary a place as that can be), I wanted to show the gradual changes in Naruto's personality over time - particularly revealing the devastating and LONG TERM effects that Hon's death will have on Naruto. So I needed somewhere good to start, as a rule I will try to return to the cannon, unless it is too much work and then I will just do whatever I want. As for the changes that Naruto will go through they will be fairly subtle - after all he did get some training in hiding his emotions, what between the academy and Hon, plus his own natural defense that hides his true-self - but they should be obvious over time.

Onyx: As for power creep. Oh, it will happen in N:LC, but it is going to take a lot longer than some other fics. But trust me, when the battles get epic they will get Achillean Epic.

Psycho: And using the laws of funny I call a mutiny on the Narrator.

Onyx: What? You can't!

Crazy: Cream Pie!

Onyx: Read, review, repeat. Reviews help me fend of these monsters- WAIT THAT DOESN'T GO THERE!


	8. Chapter 8

Travelers had worn the path through the cave smooth. Since its discovery decades ago the long winding cave had accommodated itself to human travel. Bars of iron had been planted in the stone. A thin film of smoke had settled on the walls and clung to the ceiling, spawned from the touches that lit the pathways hidden beneath the earth. The once crystal pools of undisturbed water flushed with the color of travel and trade.

The cave slithered under the forested hills swallowing streams and puddles. Twisting away through the soft stone, an underground river had cut the tunnel through the densely forested hills.

Except now no men walked the smooth cut stone steps. No torches pierced the darkness. Carts and caravans traveled above leaving the road below untouched. Animals were beginning to wander back into the dark hollows. Spiders were stringing up more complicated nets. There was time to work their trade and create true deadly works of beauty in the dark. Silence was making itself comfortable once again above the glassy waters - only disturbed by the echoing drips of water dropping from one stone tooth to another.

And the footsteps of her. Ink black eyes stared into the darkness as she walked the dark paths. A veil of lace woven by the spiders covered her face, and the blood dropped from one marble tooth to another.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto focused on the kunai intently. Slowly he began to slide his chakra into the blade. Little by little he slipped the latent chakra cycling just beneath his skin into the blue-black blade. At first there was nothing. No glow, no fire, no feeling. Perfect.

Just as the chakra sensitive tool began to shimmer with the smallest light of power Naruto pulled the chakra back in and began the process over again. Into the blade, into his skin. The blade into his skin. Like breathing.

This glowing kunai exercise that Ebisu had assigned was making progress. When he used Ebisu's specially made blade he could keep the chakra in a fairly tight halo around the kunai. The edges were still blurry but if he focused very hard he could actually put a sharp tip to his chakra. There was something about his chakra - no doubt due to his unwelcome house-guest - that made chakra control unbelievable difficult. It wasn't just the amount of chakra, like he had first thought, but his chakra itself didn't like to be controlled. It wouldn't form into nice compact structures. Where others might have trouble pushing their chakra out beyond their body - and even more difficulty outside of a streaming medium - Naruto's didn't want to be confined. Even unused, it remained in this strange state of controlled chaos.

However it seemed that he could teach his chakra. The idea had actually come from some old scrolls kept in the library about kenjutsu - and several days of research into the cryptic and frustratingly confusing teachings of ancient masters of the sword. They all had spoken of becoming "one with the blade" - a terribly wrong description of chakra flow techniques. Naruto had sifted through dozens of - probably - rare scrolls written by long dead people famous for their skill, but obviously not for their teaching ability. He had turned to these second rate teachers when he could find nothing useful to his problem in the scrolls left behind in the library written by actually famous sword-masters. The problem with the famous works was that they were written with practitioners of the blade in mind. The descriptions were geared toward those - not to someone who was looking for a theoretical basis of chakra streaming. Nobody wrote ancient rare scrolls for people looking for a theoretical basis of chakra streaming. Jerks.

"Becoming one with the blade" always seemed kind of stupid to Naruto. He was bigger than the blade, he was more than the blade - so why would he want to become part of it? It wasn't until he read the work of a wordy esoteric blade master who - while apparently great with the sword, had been slaughtered with all of his students in a mostly unnecessary war - wrote "Can an arm become part of the body if the soul does not know its shape? Can an eye be useful if the mind does not recognize it? How then can a blade become part of a body until its structure is familiar and not foreign?"

Structure - that was the key that Naruto's chakra lacked. During his lessons about genjutsu with Kurenai-san, Naruto had learned about the chakra structures of mind, soul, and body. (Genjutsu was primarily about making subtle changes to the internal structures of either mind or body - a few techniques dealt with the soul, but they were considered forbidden.) Leading Naruto to his conclusion that he had to 'teach' his chakra to form the structure of the kunai. In theory he just needed to familiarize himself enough with the correct structure to make it innate - like breathing. But - like Hon said - theory sucked and it was a whole lot harder than it sounded. Naruto's chakra was even more unpredictable than normal ninja's... by a long shot. Plus it would only be worth it if he taught his chakra to form the right structure. So for weeks, during any free moment (usually while he was walking around the village) Naruto had been hard at work trying to perfect this stupid little exercise.

The idea was fairly simple actually - he just fed some of the latent chakra that remained flowing through his chakra circulatory system (usually enough for about three replacement techniques) into the blade very slowly. Whenever his chakra would jump from the blade into the air Naruto pulled it back in - like he was inhaling before breathing it back out again. It was a long and arduous process - but there was definitely progress because of it.

Naruto quickly pulled the chakra back as the kunai began to flash dangerously.

"Naruto, are you actually going to do something or just stand there all day?" Ebisu's patience finally seemed to be wearing thin. It actually kind of surprised Naruto that the man had lasted this long. He had been sitting here for a good three hours doing, apparently, nothing. Ebisu-"san" was normally very patient, as long as something was happening. The creep said he liked peace and quiet, but he got just as antsy as Naruto if nothing was going on.

"Yes, Ebisu-sensei" Naruto exhaled and tried to calm his internal chakra as much as possible. Then slowly, carefully he began to let his chakra flow into the blade - for real this time. He let his chakra continue to seep into the blue-tinged blade even after the glow began. And slowly he began to feel the strange sense of extended consciousness that he had come to associate with chakra flow techniques. It felt like his arm had grown a little bit, like the blade was becoming part of him. There were these disconcerting feelings that came with the extended sense of self. Phantom feelings, like some people described coming from a lost limb. As the glow began to build and shimmer the blade felt warm, and then hot. It was right now when the chakra seemed wildest. It wanted to jump and flit like tongues of fire, run wild like a roaring river, spin out like a storm. And then slower moving from the place where his hand held the handle came a trickle of ice - a miniature glacier of chakra moving into the blade. And when the cold chakra and the hot chakra reached a balance the chakra seemed almost controlled, by competing chaos's. Here it was: balance. A bright halo of chakra hovered only a millimeter or two around the blade.

This was where Naruto could really fine tune his control. If he watched the glow carefully he could see particles of lighter and darker chakra swirling through the blade in infinitely complex organic swirls and patterns. The most violent part was where Naruto felt the cold and hot chakra mix and yet that was the easiest place to control. The hot chakra - dark, fast moving, wild - forced its way anywhere it could, filling the space like rushing water. The cold chakra - bright, strong, and slow - moved purposefully, direct, and inexorable.

Naruto could see and feel the chakra beginning to lock down on the shape of the kunai. The ring of chaos where cold and hot joined was spreading thinner and thinner. Almost. Almost. _Hey_, something in Naruto's head pointed behind him, _something is coming_.

Ninja instinct, a viable defense in any court of law within the Konoha caused Naruto to throw the kunai at the building where he was sure someone was hiding. The blade cut cleanly through the wall and a second later there was a great blast of chakra that demolished the building. Naruto was thankful the building was condemned to begin with, because he did not want to pay for it. Maybe he could get credit for a D ranked mission for demolishing it for the city.

_Err. There's something moving in the rubble. _The voice in Naruto's head pointed out. Sure enough, the dusty remains of the old building were shaking, like something pretty small but pretty strong were trying to dig its way out. Naruto hoped he hadn't crushed any poor creature. Unless it was Tora. That stupid cat deserved no mercy. But if it were something nice, like most other cats or a dog, Naruto would actually have been pretty sad. But no, thankfully it wasn't a dog or a cat. It was a Sasuke! The formerly-buried-genin was flying straight at him. He didn't look too happy about having a building dropped on him, in fact he looked pretty angry about it. Really though, it was his fault for sneaking up on someone with a potential weapon of mass destruction in their hand. _Hey, you going to move? _Naruto asked himself. Honestly he should, sooooo...

Ninja HOP!

Naruto jumped straight up into the air, barely avoiding Sasuke who, with great skill, landed quickly, twisted, and jumped straight at Naruto again. He would have caught Naruto too, if he hadn't had to parry a bunch of kunai. Naruto didn't love throwing sharp objects at his sort-of-teammate, but he didn't dislike it. He wished his accuracy was better.

What he didn't like at all was getting attacked for no apparent reason in the middle of his lesson, just when he was about to pass the test and move on to something new and interesting and - _Here he comes again. _Naruto was going to call this his protective instinct; it sounded a little like Psycho. It was kind of creepy how the voice that was supposed to keep him alive and safe sounded like the second greatest source of pain and danger he had met to date.

This time Naruto had enough of a warning to avoid the attack cleanly and jump out of the way. Judging from the way that Sasuke hadn't killed him yet - and oh yes, he could do that easily - he seemed to be trying to capture Naruto. Naruto had no idea why, but Sasuke wanted him. Sasuke could have girls, money, fame, respect, looks, a dedicated fan base, jutsu scrolls, skills, skillz, a team to do missions with, and a nearly suicidal drive to improve, but he could not have Naruto. Naruto would not allow that. So, since Ebisu was just going to stand there like the blind bum he was, Naruto had only one option.

FLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

So flee he did.

And the chase was on. Over building, under bridges, uptown, downtown, across town, it was like he was back on his morning warm up jog with greenaldee and greenaldumb. Except there were more breaks. Whenever Naruto could, he hid in alleyways, behind trash bins, and in the nooks and crannies that only a wise prankster knew about. Okay so maybe others knew about some of those odd secret passages, hidden rooms, serendipitously enlarged sewers, safe houses, and forgotten cavities - all it took to find them was a cursory glance at a map or two of the city; they were everywhere. (Footnote 1)

In fact Naruto had managed to get the genius gennin of the year so thoroughly and completely lost in the morning's pursuit that the two ended up on opposite sides of the village by ten o'clock. Satisfied that he would not be seeing Sasuke for a while, Naruto took the opportunity to take the morning off and do something interesting, like move forward with his sealing lessons. Finding Ebisu was a bad idea, because Sasuke would likely choose that as an easy place to look and Naruto was happy with his progress, he would have the glowing kunai exercise done by next week. So it really was a good time to take the break off. Naruto might even splurge and get a snack - or even better, open up one of the lessons on summons.

Naruto had just decided to procure some snacks and start learning about the fascinating subject of summoning multi-ton warrior animals to fight for him when he heard someone calling his name. Naruto stopped and listened. It sounded like Sakura.

Turning around Naruto saw that, yes indeed, it was Sakura. She was running down the street, and when she caught his eye she smiled and waved. Naruto's heart jumped to his chest. When she caught up Naruto's decided to start bouncing up and down, crushing his stomach and slapping his brain with each jump.

"Hey, Naruto? Why are you here?" She asked sweetly.

"Um," Naruto tried to find his voice, "Ebisu-sensei let me have the morning off. Something came up." It was about fifty percent true, so that had to count for something.

"Really? You too?" Sakura smiled again, "Kakashi gave us the day off too. Hey, you haven't seen Sasuke have you?"

Naruto was puzzled. Sakura seemed... strange when she mentioned Sasuke. It was different. Naruto didn't know why. "Errr, no. Not recently." It still wasn't a lie if 'recently' only extended to the passed fifteen minutes.

"Oh, good." Sakura started walking, so Naruto followed. Something was up, he couldn't quite place it. Why couldn't one of the voices inside his head let him know what was going on now, instead of laughing as his heart did a triple back flip when Sakura turned back around. "Hey, you want to come shopping with me?"

Now there were warning flares going off in Naruto's head. What between the hysterical laughing, the bouncing heart, the blaring sirens, the hormonal cocktail he had just slammed, Naruto wasn't thinking straight. "Shopping, like... what?"

"Oh you know, shopping" She shrugged like that explained everything. Which it certainly didn't. "Call it a date."

Date. And that word shut down any rational thought in Naruto's mind. It was like there had been this switch in his brain that was waiting for Sakura to say that word to connect a circuit to release the fantastic delusions. Emergency power wasn't enough to overrule the hostile takeover of his faculties. "Date? I'd love too."

Together they walked around the corner. Unfortunately Naruto was paying more attention to Sakura's swaying hips than to her swinging fist.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Wait, seriously?" Naruto struggled to fit the idea through his mind. He was still waking up and wasn't sure he had heard Kakashi right. "I don't get any more lessons? From anybody? Not even Anko-sensei?"

"Nope. You've been put full time on team seven, effective immediately."

"So wait," Naruto scrunched his face up trying to convey that he was thinking really hard - he wasn't really, but it was kind of funny when he did that, "Does that mean I have to spend more time with you, duck-butt, and Sakura-chan?"

"Yep."

"Dang. Nothing against you, Sakura-chan" Naruto caught himself, "But I end up in the hospital a lot more when I'm around you guys than when I'm not. I don't think that gramps is going to like all the new medical bills."

"I like how you go around calling the most powerful man in the village 'gramps'." Sasuke said.

Naruto shrugged, only a little inhibited by the cords that bound him, "That's what I called him when I was little, so why should I change?"

"I don't think I'll ever understand you." Sasuke shook his head and sighed.

"Speaking of things I don't understand, why did you guys chase me around the village and tied me up? Seriously, what gives?" Naruto struggled at the ropes trying to get free.

"Oh, that?" Cock-eye-sensei waved off Naruto's question, "That was a practice exercise for capturing an escaped prisoner. I figured you'd be the perfect target to give them a workout."

"Oh," Naruto thought about that for a second, "In that case, that was totally unfair Sakura-chan."

"Drop the 'chan' idiot. And if you're dumb enough to think that I would really go on a date with you - you deserve to be knocked out and tied up."

"Still totally unfair." Naruto struggled even harder with the ropes. He really didn't like being tied up or restricted from movement. It reminded of things he didn't want to remember. The rope was starting to chafe and cut off circulation as it dug into his struggling arms. "Could you guys please, let me go." Naruto asked, starting to sweat in exertion - or at least mostly in exertion. "Please."

"No." Sasuke answered. "For everything you put me through you can just sit there and suffer."

"No. Really guys. Let me go." Naruto pleaded. "Come on guys, let me go. Please. Seriously."

"Why, so you can run off again? I don't think so." Sakura swung a kunai around her finger as she answered.

"Sensei," Naruto turned to Kakashi, "Please, let me out. I'm not going to run away I promise. Now please, just let me out of here." Naruto's breath grew ragged as the memories started to force their way up through his mental block. Cockeye-sensei flicked his wrist and severed the knot with a thrown kunai and Naruto was out of the ropes in a flash. He stopped several feet away from the pile of ropes and let his breathing and heartbeat return to normal.

"Hey, what's up?" Sasuke asked.

"Nothing." Naruto lied, "I just really don't like being tied up, okay. Is that a problem?"

"Why, it's not like we were going to hurt you or anything. Seriously, it's just ropes" Sasuke explained, "It's not that big a de-"

"I just don't like it okay!" Naruto shouted. The team was silent for a second, surprised by Naruto's violent outburst.

"Jeez, yeah, fine," Sasuke held up his hands and backed away from the killing intent that Naruto was accidentally letting off. Naruto concentrated on his breathing and slowed it back down to a normal pace; in, out, in, out. And slowly his breathing and the thumping of his heart in his ear returned to normal and Naruto was calm again.

"So why am I suddenly on the team full-time. I mean I didn't hear anything about this at all."

"Well," Cockeye-sensei trailed off like he was building to something big, which of course smelled of anti-climax. "We need a full team to go on out-of-town C ranked missions" Well apparently there were exceptions that proved the rule, like this time for instance.

"Seriously!"

"Like a real actual C ranked mission? Not just some doppie crap, but an actual mission?" Naruto asked.

"Yep. We'll be escorting a minor noble and his family back home. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it is an actual real honest C ranked mission, not some doppie crap." Kakashi seemed like he smiled at his students reactions. "We'll be meeting them for inspection at exactly one o'five in front of Hokage Tower. Until then, I would like you to prepare for the mission."

"Umm, Sensei," Sakura raised her hand, "How long should this mission take?"

"As I understand, the home of our noble is on the other side of the Dark Trail Tunnel, so... Three days there three days back... a week? Barring any trouble."

"Thank you sensei." In full stick-up mode Sakura bowed.

"Any other questions?" Cockeye-sensei looked them over. Suddenly he brightened like he had an idea, "Since this is your first COOT mission, how about a little wager?"

"COOT?" Naruto questioned, "I thought this was a C ranked out of... oh. C-ranked Out Of Town Mission. Who comes up with these names?"

"I don't know, I blame the Departments of Mission Vernacular," Kakashi shrugged, "But how about the wager?"

"That depends, what kind of prizes are we talking here? Like cash, servitude, compromising situations, destruction of blackmail material?" Sasuke answered.

"Dates!" Naruto perked up.

"Hell n-" Sakura seemed to respond on reflex but stop herself and rethought the idea, "actually I like that one."

"I go with her first reaction: hell no." Sasuke said flatly.

"Then what are we going to do: looser has to dress up like Gai?" Naruto suggested, looking at Sasuke.

"Ehhehheg, No." Sasuke shivered and killed the idea.

Except that he didn't do a very good job of that. "Actually," Cockeye sensei seemed to radiate some sadistic glee, "How about this: loser has to make one permanent alteration to their wardrobe."

Naruto suddenly felt like there were a lot of eyes on his orange jacket. Unfortunately his mind was darting between what he could do to Sakura or Sasuke if they lost. "Deal." They all said together.

"Good, than the person who comes most unprepared to the mission has to make one permanent change to their wardrobe." Kakashi nodded. "Dismissed."

And he disappeared, Sakura turned to Naruto and pointed at his jacket, "Burn it now Naruto. You are going to lose."

"What? No! I love my jacket." Naruto said, hugging the warn, torn, stained thing closer to his person.

"Oh, no, no, no, no." Sasuke shook his head and placed one hand on Naruto's shoulder. Naruto suddenly felt as if death himself had touched him when exactly the demonic glee rose behind him. "Not just your jacket. There is not going to be any more orange on you. Permanently."

"What!? What's wrong with orange." Naruto jumped back and held on even tighter to his ratty old orange jacket. "Orange is awesome. I mean really, it's like awesomeness in a color. You can't just tell me to get rid of my signature color."

"No, but when you lose, we can." Sasuke almost looked happy... or as close to happy as his features would allow - turning his face into some maniacal smile. Naruto was sure that he would make a pretty worthless villain, he was not imposing at all.

"Or, when you lose, you could get used to the color."

"Pft. Yeah, not happening dweeb."

"Oh yeah, we'll see about that." Naruto turned and rushed off toward the library. He'd show them, and when he won... Oh they would see. And he would win there was absolutely no way he could lose. Because he had access to a library - okay most of a library - but a library's worth of fuuinjutsu. When he got back home he rushed through the reading room and down the hallway to the only 'special projects' closet that Naruto had managed to unlock. He pulled out what he was looking for: _Sealed Armor: Thieves' Sleeves. _The simplest piece of the _Armed Set: Thieves Night_, Thieves' Sleeves were really just big floppy sleeves with hundreds of storage seals woven into them, and an affixing seal to attach them to clothes. Actually Naruto could make a copy - probably a good project to tackle if he wanted to start work on an actual Armed Set - except that he couldn't write small enough yet to fit enough seals to be worth it.

That wasn't the point through! The point was that he could pretty much carry a house's worth of stuff along with him. There was no way he could loose! Naruto grinned gleefully as he brought the sleeves to the table. As part of the Armed Set the sleeves usually were connected to several other pieces of seal covered armor - but Armed Sets were usually designed to be modular so that if needed the individual pieces could be mixed and matched, and some pieces were even part of two completely different Armed Sets. Naruto lay the sleeves on one of the reading room tables and then took off his own jacket. Setting it on the table he bowed low to his treasured jacket.

"Please forgive me for what I am about to do." He murmured a prayer before he retrieved a kunai from its holster. Naruto checked the sharpness of the blade before slashing off the sleeves of his beloved jacket. Setting the old sleeves aside he laid Thieves' Sleeves beside the jacket as the instructions he had once read had indicated. Naruto pushed out all the air in his lungs and collected his intent for the affixing seal. He activated the seal and watched, in amazement. This wasn't just a poof and it's done seal... meaning it would be a lot harder to copy to get his old sleeves back. Dang it.

The carefully woven fibers at the end of the sleeves began to unravel. As if they were alive the fibers began to move across the table. Some of them moved like whiskers or feelers testing out the terrain looking for their destination. On of these long threads touched the frayed edge of Naruto's crude cut and something snapped. It was like all the threads stampeded for the jacket, rushing and cramping to get in. The threads looped and wove themselves into the faded fabric of his jacket and pulled. Less that twenty seconds and the sleeves were seamlessly connected to his jacket - as if they had never been apart.

"Wow." Naruto allowed himself a little moment of awe at the work of the master seal. Moment was up. Naruto grabbed the jacket and pulled it on, now with its huge floppy sleeves of sealing. He threw the old cut sleeves into his room, not really caring where they landed for now, because now it was time to go "shopping."

Law codes are funny - especially ones that are developed over time by necessity. Codes written by a single person - or even a small group of people with a specific purpose tended to be better - but those are so rare. Most law codes were written little by little over decades or even centuries morphed and changed by cultures and changes formed from negotiations and patched together as stop-gap measures. They were complicated, riddled with loopholes, and filled with forgotten esoteric anachronisms from arguments ages past. Like the little jewel in the Konoha Legal Books: "All legal ninja activity done by legal native ninja is legal within the legal boundaries of the village." Naruto didn't exactly know how this moronical jumble of legalese had come about but he expected that it had something to do with ninjas being allowed to do in-town missions. Regardless of its spirit - the letter of the law effectively allowed Naruto's favorite form of "shopping."

You see legal ninja activity includes theft - ninja's are assigned retrieval and recovery missions (fancy jargon for steal and steal-back missions) so therefore theft was legal ninja activity. So by that wonderful little law, theft, by Konoha ninja, was completely legal. Therefore "shopping!"

Actually, Naruto had decided to resort to theft after he had inherited the library. Suddenly people had just stopped selling things to him, not even for the usual marked up prices. Not all people, granted, but all the ninja shops. Someone had actually mentioned that they would not only sell to him, but give him a discount if he sold the library to the village. Yeah, well that wasn't going to happen. Naruto felt no qualms about stealing from the Ramen Haters, but it made him wonder... But there was no time for moral quandaries now, just shopping and being thankful that only civilians wanted to work registers. Really, they were kinda asking for it.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Ha! We win, Naruto! Lose it! Come on, just get rid of it now, you will never wear orange again." Sakura shouted triumphantly as he landed in front of the rest of his permanently assigned team. He was just about to retort, when he thought better of it.

"We'll see." He shrugged and called out one of his lesson scrolls from inside the sleeves' seals. It was one that he had already been over, but since they were going on a mission it would probably be important to remember how tracking seals worked.

And so they quietly waited until Cock-eye-sensei arived. Twenty minutes had passed when they saw him walking toward them accompanied by a portly purple man and a shorter thin grey-ish man. Kakashi, normally pretty good about hiding his aggravation at any situation, was obviously put off by these two. As they approached Team Seven learned why.

"And one more thing: we'll need to have regular breaks. And one more thing: there is bad arthritis in my knees. And one more thing: Don't let whippersnappers call me old. And one more thing: don't let them get in my way. And one more thing: Stop at Aunt Girita's house. And one more thing: do not let the herbs spill. And one more thing: Do not let Tobo cook. And one more thing: Tobo needs to get a wife. And one more thing..."

Naruto was thinking about any silencing seals that he might have fortuitously fit in his sleeves. Nope. He didn't get any in. He hadn't thought he would have to silence the client. It seemed like such an obvious though in retrospect. Maybe he should have found a seal that forced them to follow him, and not run away, and be well behaved. Those kind of seals had to exist somewhere, right? Well if they did Naruto didn't know where they were. This was going to be one hell of a mission. Emphasis on hell.

"Well team," Kakashi just started speaking over the little old man, "This is Tobomaru-san, and his father Lord Izo. We will be escorting them back home for our mission. Tobomaru-san, Izo-sama, Team Seven: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto."

All three members of team seven bowed respectfully, some more than others. Sakura moved into the textbook 43 and one half degree bow, Sasuke dipped his head in the classic "I'm a ninja" bow, and Naruto ended up somewhere in between. Naruto hoped he conveyed a sense of "I will do my job to the utmost, but please try to be helpful at the same time. I really don't want have to deal with potential situations because I let you wander too far."

"They are too young." Tobomaru grumbled.

Kakashi seemed to frown, "This team includes some of the best that the current generation of genin have to offer"

"They are still too young. Tell me, girl," Tobomaru pointed a single pudgy finger about the size of a sausage at Sakura, "How many men have you killed."

Sakura squealed a little and drew in. While it was kind of a fair question to ask a ninja, everyone with any sense knew it was a little rude. To ask that of a genin was bad manners all around. Sakura mumbled quietly, "None, sir." Sakura suspected that Sasuke had killed someone before. He had been almost a quiet as Naruto after the day that the librarian died. Not only was the question a little scary, it was almost embarrassing. She didn't exactly know how to feel about the fact that she was the only member of Team Seven that hadn't directly seen or experienced death. On the one hand she didn't really want to kill anybody, or even see anybody get killed, but on the other hand she felt like she wasn't a real ninja until she had.

"And one more thing: the girl must walk with me. And one more thing: don't touch me. And one more thing: don't touch me. And one more thing: don't let your sensei do all the work. And one more thing: you look too young. And one more thing, you are too thin. And one more thing: you need better cloths. And one more thing..."

"See?" Tobomaru turned to Kakashi and spoke over the older man, "They aren't nearly experienced to protect us yet? While I respect you, Kakashi-san, I know that you will have to worry about these children as much as you will have to worry about protecting us."

Kakashi's eye narrowed, "That is possible; however my students can more than handle themselves. You shouldn't need to worry."

"But I do." The fat man slapped his thigh to give emphasis to his statement, instead it just sounded kind of like a sharp fleshy snap. Sakura and Naruto flinched at the disgusting sound. "The path we need to take isn't safe anymore! These _children _won't be enough! I demand a new team."

"I'm sure that my team will more than suffice for your protection. If you are worried about the yakuza that have taken up a toll on the cave, don't. My students could take them all with ease."

"I doubt that! Look at them. They couldn't even take my servants."

Now Kakashi was getting a little angry. He didn't show it very much, but Team Seven could definitely tell. All the while Lord Izo was annoyingly prattling on about "One more thing."

Sasuke turned to look at Naruto, "If I kill them, do you think we'll still get paid?"

"And one more thing: don't wave your sharp knives around. And one more thing: they scare me. And one more thing..."

"I don't know," Sakura shook her head, "I might have to find out though."

Naruto rolled up some bits of paper he had torn off of a scrap scroll. They weren't going to be very good ear plugs but they would have to work.

Somehow they actually managed to get going without any bloodshed, but it was a close thing. Thankfully Lord Annoying - as Naruto was already calling him - simmered down as they started moving. In all their party consisted of Team Seven, Tobomaru-san (or Mr. Purple), Lord Annoying, and "the-only-tolerable-member-of-the-party" Jaki-san. Jaki was kind of like Lord Annoying and slave, technically he was a nephew but the Lord and his son treated him like a butt-monkey anyway. Naruto felt sorry for him actually. The man was actually pretty nice, it was kind of a shame that he had to pull the cart that the Lord and Tobomaru rode in.

All in all the first day of travel - even if it wasn't a full day - was actually fairly productive. They had left Konoha just after lunch and stopped in a very small village to speak with Lord Annoying's Aunt, after about twenty minutes there they fled her violent wooden spoon (Lord Annoying unfortunately was spry enough to dodge all of her swings) and continued on. As sun set they trundled into the village where they planned to spend the night.

Kakashi stepped forward toward the bar where the innkeeper was sorting the the glasses. "Hey Gendo," He waved and the innkeeper looked up, "We're going to need a room or two for the night. By the way glass number six has four more spots than glass number seven."

The funny man's eyes grew wide and he reexamined the glasses. Seeing that, indeed, glass six had more spots than glass seven he switched glass number five with glass number twelve.

Sakura leaned over to Naruto and Sasuke, "Okay, what the heck is wrong with this guy?"

"I don't know."

"In some books they talk about compulsive conditions, maybe its one of those things?"

"Then what is his compulsion?"

"Keeping his cups clean?" Naruto shrugged. Sasuke and Sakura looked back at the row of glasses set up on the bar in some unintelligible order.

"Obviously not." Sasuke mumbled, but immediately stood up straighter when Kakashi waved them over.

"Good news, guys. We've got pretty much free run of the inn tonight. Sakura I want you to work up a perimeter scheme; partner with Naruto, see if he has any seals that could help you. Sasuke I want you to look for traps around the place - and don't say there aren't any here. I put some down last time I was here, so I'll know where to look. Naruto, you're going to be keeping an eye on our clients. Please, don't let anybody kill them, I know there aren't a lot of people here right now, but I wouldn't put it past someone to try... especially with him." Kakashi jerked his thumb toward Lord Annoying, who was going over everything that needed to be done when they got back to their house.

Naruto was considering popping out one of his bright pink "adhesive marking" scrolls just to show Cock-eye-sensei how much he loved his assignment, but Sakura stopped that train of thought. "Sensei," she asked, "why are there so few people here? I mean this should be right on a major trade route - one accessible almost all year - I thought there would be more people."

"Oh that?" The innkeeper speaked from behind his cups, "Wheell ya see, lill' miss, de been hav'n a lill' trouble in da cav' latellee. Na sa many peeple comin' throo any mo."

"Trouble?" If Kakashi had visible eyebrows them probably would have been elevated, however he didn't... so it was just implied.

"I donns noe. De juss stop comin' couple monse ago. Bad business. Bad business." He shook his head and went back to sorting his glasses.

"Okay. That was odd."

Naruto agreed with Sakura. Suddenly things didn't seem so easy any more. In fact the two or three travelers hunched around the room became a lot scarier, for no good reason. In his mind he was going over seals that he knew that could be used to protect them tonight, and tomorrow.

Across the room one of the travelers was banging his head against the table, trying in vain to incapacitate himself so that he didn't have to listen to Lord Annoying. Tobomaru-san drew heavily from his large purple bottle. Silently Team Seven agreed with both; Lord Izo needed to be blocked out somehow... any how.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"He what?" The weasel faced man hissed. A fist slammed against the dark wood table. If the bandages hadn't covered them and the the room had been light enough the small "Root" council would have seen Danzo's eyebrows raise a quarter of an inch. Alas, this rare sight was not seen because for whatever ungodly reason they did keep the room dark and Danzo's face was still covered in several layers of opaque gause.

"He permanently transferred the boy onto the Copy Ninja's team and sent them out on a reclassified B rank mission." Danzo repeated, very slowly. Most people thought he was cruel humorless and dull, actually Danzo believed himself quite witty and interesting, most people just didn't get his humor.

"He can't do that!" Someone squeeled.

_Not really, that's perfectly in his rights to do, _Danzo thought, _but it is a bit stupid_. The Hokage had final say over who was assigned to what mission, it was one of the perks of his job. Under the Third's reign people had gotten a little bold as their "advice" tended to to taken more often than not; however he should have asked for a second opinion here instead of rushing off on his own. The man was too trusting at times, too suspicious at others.

"On the other hand..." One of the "Root" council stood up from the table and walked around to stand beside the weasel-faced one. This one was craftier, Danzo knew. He was one of the more brilliant politicians on the "Root" council, even if he stayed quiet in the village council meetings. He had brilliant control over people. Sometimes Danzo wished he could have made a ninja instead of becoming a ruthless tradesman; he would have done very well in the interrogation corps. At least Danzo had recruited him for his own personal domestic spy network, the "Root" council.

"This could be an excellent opportunity." The snakish man hissed.

Danzo sat up straighter. This was unexpected. The Root council came up with it's own ideas from time to time; sometimes they were good, sometimes they weren't. Danzo had specifically chosen these people for his council for their enterprising spirit and their undying loyalty to improving the leaf's standings in every endeavor. They shared his goals... almost all the time.

There were times, however, when they liked to overstep their own good. Those times tended to be centered around one very special, very important child.

"This would be a chance to take care of that little problem."

"What problem?"

"Our little problem."

"The dogs?"

"Our little ORANGE problem."

"The mold in the west side of town? I don't follow, how is this-"

"Our little, orange, foxy problem!"

Danzo showed no outer reaction - he had had a lot of practice - but on the inside he was particularly enjoying this exchange. Uzumaki Naruto was the one point he and the Root Council diverged on. There were reasons for keeping the weasel-faced man on his council: one his wife was a wonderful gossip, two he was a great sacrifice at village council meetings, and three: for moments like this when he would just blankly stare at the person trying to get him to understand.

"The demon child!" The snake-ish man hissed angrily.

"Ohhhhhh!" The weasel's face made a wonderful 'O' shape and then scrunched back into confusion, "Wait? How is that?"

"We. Kill. Him." The man spat.

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Waaaiiiitttttt foooorr iiiittt...

He'd get it eventually.

"Oh!" There it goes.

And this is why weasel-face was kept on the Root Council. Danzo might train emotionless automatons of children but he wasn't one himself; there were times he sorely needed some comic relief in his life.

Now back to more important and relevant thoughts: like Naruto, like them killing Naruto, like them killing the village jinchuuriki, budding seal master extraordinaire, and offspring of two of the most important ninjas to graduate from the not-Root Acadamy. This was not good. Danzo did not approve.

"Danzo, would Root be-"

"No."

"But-"

"No." Danzo could see they weren't going to buy monosyllabic answers, dang. There were several things he could do right now: he could walk out (but that would alienate them and make them only more insufferable), he could kill them all (but that would be messy) or he could lie through his teeth. It was a good thing he was good at lying. "He suspects me, the Hokage is watching me too tightly right now for ROOT to even think about taking a contract out on a Konoha Ninja. Particularly his pet project."

Danzo could see that his ploy was not going over very well. Oh, no, the morons totally believed it, but they didn't like it. These people had the tendency to try and force things to work. Round holes, square pegs... dull nails. Lying hadn't worked so Danzo had to reevaluate the situations. He knew there was really no stopping them at this point. They were already turning their shoulders to Danzo, cutting him off from their circle of scheming. He could hear them whispering "yakuza" and "mercenaries" and "pay."

"I have things to attend to." Danzo groaned as he stood. He was a ninja who could - on a good day - take out S ranked missing nin, and yet getting out of a chair was still an unnecessarily painful experience. Danzo hated age. He knew of several jutsu that could summon the God of Death, he could even do two of them... at the price of his own life. Apparently there were jutsu that bound the God of Death without the steep cost of death, but they were lost years ago. The real question was if there were any jutsu that could summon the God of Ageing. Danzo could deal with a couple years back. Then again, so could the bastard he was going to see.

Being old sucked.

The thought often struck Danzo that he needed to start looking into finding a replacement if Root was to continue. Hmm. He should get on that.

Right after he stopped the village from trying to kill its most valuable weapon. You don't melt down a sharp sword, you don't snap a good needle, and you don't kill a budding ninja! Particularly one with access to a demon and a deadly library. Morons. You swing a sword, you thread a needle, you control a ninja. Did these people even think? No. Not when it came to the boy, they couldn't get past their own prejudices to see the benefit the boy offered. They thought too much, they thought too little.

Oh. Hey. Look. The Hokage tower, Danzo's favorite place in the whole wide fricken world. And by favorite place he meant the place that gave him the foulest taste in his mouth. So much touchy feely inefficiency. If it were for anyone - _anyone _- besides the brat in the orange suit, he would flip the table and be done with this whole thing; Danzo hated this place so much he would hardly step foot in it to save his own mother. If he had his way he would never have to walk into the place, but _no _that senile old fart in the chair had to go and do something rash and practically invite Root council to try and off the jinchuuriki. Oh well, at least he and the Hokage could have some fun games.

Okay, so maybe there were a few good things about visiting the Hokage Tower right before the late offices closed... at nine o'clock at night - slackers. Among those finer things of the Hokage Tower were looks of diarrhea inducing fear as he strolled through the front door, secretary ninja leaping through doorways and across halls to get as far away from him, the significant glance he shared with his spy on the third floor and of course the power games in the office.

The Hokage was sitting with his back to the door in his giant chair, his pipe in his mouth, and a clean desk in front of him. Danzo quickly read the nonverbal communication. Sitting with his back to the door was meant to be an affront to Danzo, insinuating that he wasn't a threat. The pipe was to annoy Danzo and his weaker lungs. The clean desk meant that he was making the most of the opportunity to get rid of a lot of work by shoveling it down stairs to the peons while they discussed things.

"Danzo."

"Hiruzen."

"That's Hokage, to you."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Danzo rolled his eyes... all of them. So that's how this was going to be. Not exactly that he could blame the man, after all they had spent the better part of a century developing a strong antagonistic relationship, but tonight he would put that aside. "We have something to discus."

"Oh, do we? I didn't know that we did." The Hokage took a deep draw from his pipe and slowly exhaled, "What is it this time? Academy policy? Classification of Forbidden Techniques? Oh maybe the war this time. I don't know, we differ on so many points. Tea?"

Suddenly there was a ninja - ANBU of course - hovering next to Danzo's shoulder with a tea set in his hands. "Oh, yes." Danzo motioned for the tray to be set down on the clear desk in front of them. "I notice you have no milk for you tea." Danzo pointed out, suddenly a ninja flickered in and out of the room, leaving a small matching boat of cream on the tray. The Hokage frowned; Danzo enjoyed his small victory for a second, the Hokage had actually thought he had cleaned out all the strange pockets of space time surrounding his office, well obviously not, since the ninja that brought the milk was Root. Take that, you soft old fart.

"Don't mind if I do." The Hokage reached forward and picked up the boat, then paused. "Would you like some?"

"Yes, please." Danzo replied. Of course the tea was somehow poisoned and so was the milk. They both knew that, but Danzo watched carefully as the Hokage filled the cups with tea and milk. They both reached forward and took the tea cup on the far side of the tray from them and took a sip.

The Hokage smacked his lips. "Well, this is awkward."

"Death on the Line?"

"Well, guess it's a good thing we were building up immunity. That dose would have killed..."

"Seven thousand six hundred and twenty two people, and three fairly big rats." Now that the ice was suitably broken, Danzo could actually get around to the point. "Or one really big fox." That got the Hokage's attention. It was actually kind of funny watching all the wrinkles in the man's face stretch back into these thin sharp lines, except for the ones and the bottom of his cheeks which turned softer and darker. "Well then again, it appears five thousand ryo, a bag of free goodies, and a well intentioned idiot achieve the same effect."

"What?"

"There is a faction that is planning to hire men to go after the jinchuuriki and kill him while he is on this wildly idiotic plan of yours." Danzo growled. "I know the details of this mission - don't ask how, I won't tell you - and about the issue in Dark Trail Tunnel. I know that the reports of a demon inhabiting the tunnel started just after the death of Senju Hon. I know that despite your 'appraisal' of the library you still don't know where That Seal is. And the thing that neither of us know is if it even works now that he's dead."

"Even if it was a demon there - which I admit is a possibility - it will be handled."

"Oh, I have no doubt that Kakashi could handle a demon and a team of mercenaries - if he were alone. But he's not. He has three students, three clients; and to top it off he's in the demons' natural habitat. The boy may be a host for a demon, but it still only takes a blade to kill him."

"Fine!" The Hokage held up his hands, "I agree with you. I will send an ANBU in behind to watch over Team Seven. Is that acceptable?"

Danzo thought about it. He shifted in his seat and drummed out a message to the Root that was hiding in the recesses of space time surrounding the office. 'Send one of us. Make it seem like one of them.'

"That will be find. Good night." And Danzo left. He had to admit, it was almost an enjoyable conversation for once. Maybe they should agree more often.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Penguin-san was enjoying his patrols tonight. Even though he was primarily restricted to in-town missions thanks to extenuating circumstances, it was relaxing not having to deal with actual missions. He could sleep in his own bed... when he got the chance to sleep. He could eat at his favorite restaurants... whenever he wasn't on mission. Now that he thought about it, an out of town mission would be nice. Even though he was stuck in town a lot, he was almost always watching Uzumaki Naruto so his life was either really really dull, or very very exciting. There was no in-between in Penguin-san's life.

Except this week. This week Uzumaki Naruto was out of town, he had a regular patrol mission, and he had time to himself. Life was good.

"Penguin." Welp, that didn't last long. As a rule anyone who announces their presence by saying your name in a somber business like expression is either a good friend trying to be ironic, or bad news. In Penguin-san's life it almost always tended to be the latter. This time it didn't appear to be any different because, seriously when people showed up during a low-level mission in the middle of the night they did not bring happy news. "Danzo-sama has a mission for you."

See! Bad news. Penguin-san was hoping for once - just once - that he could have a good week. Instead the root messenger tossed him a mission brief. He would be tailing Team Seven. Of course he would be tailing Team Seven, what else would the people in charge of the universe have him do? It was like his whole life was just kind of an extended joke.

Penguin shivered, what was he just thinking about? Oh, right missions. "There isn't any way for me to get out of this, is there?"

"No."

"Fine," Penguin-san grumbled, "but why me?"

"I don't know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that you're the only one who can keep an eye on him."

"Yeah, but that's no reason to persecute me! I have feelings! I have rights!" The Root messenger was less than amused. "I have places to be," Penguin-san finished lamely, "I'm going. I'm going."

Penguin-san wondered if it was really a good idea to train up ninja to have no sense of humor. Someone in charge had a sense of irony and people who didn't share it tended to end up...

Penguin-san shivered, like someone had walked over his grave. What was he thinking about? Oh right, missions concerning twelve-year-olds, how could he forget?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sasuke stretched. He might be on a mission, but right now he saw no reason to break his regular morning routine. The nobles were still asleep in the inn, there was no danger in sight, and if Kakashi-sensei asked he was just out patrolling the perimeter. As he reached down to touch his toes, Sasuke's thoughts wandered. The mission had been fairly underwhelming up to this point. Okay, maybe his original fantasies of coming across dangerous S-ranked criminals had been a little far fetched, but was it really too much to ask for a couple of bandits to attack? Anything to make this mission just a little bit more interesting.

Sasuke started his morning run without disturbing his wandering train of thoughts. Really the hardest thing about the mission up to this point was not killing Lord Izo. Kakashi's latent traps hadn't been too hard to find... after a hint or two. Sasuke knew he would probably get called out for missing one, but he had left the one on Naruto's cot there on purpose. Honestly he wondered why the innkeeper had just let Kakashi leave traps all over the building. Okay, to be fair most of them would only catch ninjas; but still, it was just a little odd.

Speaking of odd, was that Naruto?

Sasuke slowed down, planted a foot in the dust and spun around (classic ninja move). The answer was yes, that had been Naruto. He was standing by the back door of the inn very still. No, he wasn't standing still. He was just moving very slowly. Very slowly. Sasuke shrugged and continued his morning run. After the third lap around the inn it became more obvious what Naruto was actually doing. It looked like he was practicing Kata - basic Kata - but very slowly. Sasuke stopped.

"Okay, what are you doing dweeb?" Sasuke asked.

"Kata." Naruto popped one of his eyes open and glanced at Sasuke.

"Yeah, I can see that. But why are you doing it so slowly?"

"Spandex-sensei says that it's important to know how your body moves so that you can control it. So I'm trying to learn exactly how my muscles move while I practice my kata. Plus it helps with balance." Naruto replied. He closed his eye again and went back to what he was doing.

"But you're doing it wrong." Sasuke finally pointed out.

Naruto froze. "What?"

"Yeah, this is the third form, right, because your center of mass needs to be moved forward a little bit and you should be swinging from the shoulder, not the elbow."

Naruto corrected himself, but there was a reason kata wasn't normally practiced at this speed. The reason was balance. Sometimes, when you're in motion, your center of mass isn't right over your point of balance. When you're moving, that's not much of a problem, because in a fraction of a second you'll balance yourself and everything will be just fine. When you're moving at a glacial pace? Not so much. It was only about twenty seconds before Naruto collapsed.

"Grahg." Naruto cried in frustration.

"Hey, dweeb. How long have you been up anyway?" Sasuke asked. It was still shortly after six and Naruto didn't exactly strike him as the morning type. Sasuke actually kind of figured that he took every opportunity to sleep in that he could. He had been prepared to have to drag him out of bed several minutes before they had to leave. Naruto as a morning person didn't exactly seem to fit with his previous ideas about Naruto.

"About half an hour. I wanted to get a little bit more sleep that I usually do; because, you know, I don't have train with Spandex-sensei and Lee-ni-san at five-flippen-thirty in the morning. But nope. I woke at five anyway and couldn't go back to sleep. So I figured I might as well get some training done anyway."

"I see," Sasuke nodded, "same here."

And then the conversation fell into a awkward silence. Sasuke felt like he should say something, which was odd, because normally he didn't care about long awkward pauses. He had no idea what to say however. So he just kind of let it go on. Maybe if he let it go long enough, the problem would just solve itself. There were a lot of problems that just waiting long enough seemed to solve.

"Hey, ahh, you want to spar?" Naruto asked as he pushed himself of the ground.

Sasuke couldn't suppress the snort. "Yeah, sure." Oh, this should be good. He almost felt sorry for Naruto, he would be walking all day with the bruises he was about to get.

"OK! Sweet." Naruto pumped his fist in the air.

"Adorable," Sasuke taunted as he slid into a ready stance. His muscles suddenly began to feel warm. He tensed and loosened everything once, twice, three times. Naruto probably didn't know this, but Sasuke was always serious. Oh, no, he wouldn't kill him, but Sasuke wouldn't be pulling any punches. If any fight was worth fighting, he figured, it was worth fighting for real.

"What's adorable? Are you saying I'm cute? I'm not cute!"

"Well, it is kind of cute - the way you think this might actually be a fair fight." Sasuke smiled, and rushed. His first attack - a hard left - was dodged. That wasn't a problem. Before he overextended himself Sasuke shifted his weight and threw his momentum behind a low kick that swept Naruto off his feet. Naruto managed to catch himself and roll though the fall, bounding back up several feet back, but not before scooping up a handful of dirt and throwing it in Sasuke's eyes.

Suddenly blinded by the offending sand-attack, Sasuke was unable to see, much less dodge, Naruto's next attack. "Who ever said this would be a fair fight? We're ninja, cheating is kind of like what we do."

Sasuke managed to blink the dirt out of his eyes, dodging Naruto's attacks as best he could through his teared-up eyes. Finally, Sasuke managed to grab a tempo and return an attack. Naruto doubled over from the heavy fist to the gut and Sasuke responded with a knee to the face. Sasuke was slightly impressed when Naruto was able to recover from the combo - but it took him long enough that Sasuke was able to form a clone and move out of Naruto's line of sight. Naruto, blood gushing out of his nose, darted forward toward the genjutsu. Sasuke almost wished he could have seen Naruto's face when his fist went straight through the clone. Oh well, it was just as fun to lay him out with a well placed kick.

"Ow. Hey that's not fair. No jutsu!"

"Whoever said this fight would be fair?" Sasuke echoed, "We're ninja, cheating is what we do."

Naruto turned around grinning. He nodded. Sasuke stepped back, ready for the boy to come. This might actually be fun.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Omake

In the interim

"Look, if Iwa wants to get into this thing again, I am not going to say I told them so. They can go... thump?" The Hokage stopped confused.

"Thump sir?" The ANBU captain looked at the old man like he really thought the Hokage was going batty - something the Hokage didn't doubt anymore. Things were getting more and more crazy everyday and he wasn't really in the mood to deal with it anymore.

"Didn't you just hear a 'thump'?"

"No sir." The ANBU shook his head.

"But I could have sworn that-"

"However there definitely a whump."

"What? No that was a 'thump.' And they say I'm deaf."

"No sir," The ANBU shook his head, "That was a whump. A thump is the sound that something large makes as it hits the ground, or the floor, or something else fairly large or flat. A whump is the sound that a massive displacement of air makes - possibly because a thump. But they are distinct sounds."

Sarutobi glared at the man... woman... person.

"The ANBU dictionary makes the differences very clear. I myself was punished for accurate description of a thump and as a bump during my first year as an ANBU."

"I give you guys a budget to determine the difference between thumps, whumps, bongs, and bangs? That's stupid." Sarutobi paused, "on the other hand it makes for a great place for budget cuts. Get those ramen forsaken morons on the council off my back for a couple of meetings - on the third hand Danzo would probably ramp up the assassination game if I tried that, so... What's the line item anyway?"

"Effective Mission Vernacular."

"Ah. That explains it." The conversation ball landed between the two or them at that point and neither felt like bending down to pick it up. "So, what was that 'whump' anyway?"

"Probably Orange's new 'marking smoke screen' that he was telling Fan about this morning."

"Your code names are really obvious. You know that right?"

"Yeah, Effective Mission V. is working on it."

"How many people are working in the EMV right now anyway?"

"Seven. I should know, every single one of them has asked for a fruit cake and a box of mints everyday for the past week - Accounting is on my back as it is!"(Footnote 3)

"Anyway, back to the thump. What were these 'marking smoke screens' that Naruto was talking about?"

Unfortunately the screaming that echoed through the windows stopped any further conversation. The Hokage pulled apart the shades that blocked out the sun. "Hmm. Pink."

"Pink sir?"

"Yes, pink." The Hokage pulled the blinds to reveal that his window had been completely covered in pink, like someone - probably wearing a tacky orange costume - had painted over the windows with several layers of pink paint.

"Pink." The ANBU agreed. "But the question is: how much?"

The window screamed as its rusty hinges were forced to work for the first time in twelve years. There were minor demons who had taken up their retirement in those hinges, certain that they would never be touched until Death-Himself finally came to get them, they were most displeased both with being disturbed and finding themselves repainted the color pink.

"Definitely Naruto." Sarutobi nodded to himself, "Who else could turn a quarter of the city pink?"

"I don't know sir. Would you like me to find him?"

The Hokage turned to look at his ANBU captain, incredulously. "You have a hard enough time finding him when he is wearing bright orange. What makes you think you'll find him now? He's probably pink, the grounds pink, everything's pink! There could be pink elephants down there and we still wouldn't be able to find them!"

"Oh! Pink elephants, now there's an idea." The window next to the Hokage said in Naruto's voice.

"Naruto!"

"What! It should fade... eventually," The nearly invisible pink boys squeaked, "See look," a hand appeared in the blue sky and pointed into the distance, "the adhesion bonds are already breaking, you'll be able to sweep up the pink in a couple hours. With an effect radius this wide I think I'm lucky that the markers adhered to anything at all. I just got to work on containing the thing. It's no use like this, maybe there was something in the..." and the voice faded as the boy moved away from the Hokage tower.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Footnote 1

Konoha was once a much smaller - but still prosperous - village. It once was a trade hub for the area and the seat of power for the area before the founding of the elemental nations. When the Hidden Village of the Leaves - or Village Hidden in the Leaves - or the even more obscure variants - was founded, the future first Hokage created a new town on top of the old and gave the village a lush, dense, and nearly untraversable forest for protection as a gift to show the Senju's commitment to the enterprise (Footnote 2)

Footnote 2

The Uchiha were unfortunately never able to live down the fact that they brought the smaller gift, a large banquet to celebrate the union.

Footnote 3: The EMV and the Distracting Mission Vernacular (DMV), another sub-department of counter intelligence, have long been in a war to see who could be the most productive department in confusing the crap out of enemy spies. For the longest time the EMV was in the lead, until the DMV devised the excellent tactic of giving everyday speech an obstructing secondary meaning and not telling their rivals. The result being that when the head of the EMV asked for an extra hand to deal with their massively successful department he accidently asked to be locked in a dark basement for twelve hours a day. And now, because nobody has seen to give those deviants in EMV a new copy of the DMV handbook, every time they ask to be let out to use the toilet they are actually asking for... well... a fruitcake and a box of mints.


	9. Chapter 9

Naruto hissed in pain as the balm touched his cut. "Oh, hold still, will you."

Okay, really this _was _all his fault. After all, he was the one that suggested sparring with Sasuke, and he was the one who started the underhanded tricks. Sasuke would probably have been content to beat on him in a completely fair manner instead of nicking him over and over again with his sharp blades. However, blood had been necessary for Phase One of his plan.

Maybe calling this 'Phase One' of his plan was a little presumptuous, after all, so far it had been a rather spontaneous series of ideas. When he had challenged Sasuke he hadn't been intending to apply a marker-point to Sasuke. It just kind of came to him... some time after his nose had started bleeding.

"Honestly, I don't know what you were thinking. Challenging Sasuke? That's got to be one of the stupider things you've done. I think that you're lucky to ha-"

Suddenly Naruto sat up and pushed away Sakura's hand. "Yeah, thanks, Sakura, but I'm fine. Okay?" More than a little annoyed at Sakura, Naruto still remembered to applied a marker-point onto her skin using his Bloody Signs Jutsu. Naruto stood up and brushed the dust off his sleeves and began to walk away. He was just a little surprised when Sakura didn't move to follow him and yet he still breathed a sigh of relief.

Kakashi was talking with the innkeeper again, paying for their stay, moving the glasses around absentmindedly. They would be leaving soon. One thing about traveling with Lords, there was never an early start. Which for Naruto wasn't really a big problem. It meant he could sleep-in - well, he could sleep in, if his body hadn't been trained to wake up at five thirty every morning.

Naruto waited patiently for Kakashi-sensei to finish so they could begin going over their travel plan. It was interesting watching them discuss things, the whole time Kakashi was making comments about the innkeepers odd collection of glasses. However, the innkeepers constant rearrangements seem to have no relation to Kakashi's comments. There didn't seem to be any order to it. No. No, there was an order to it. There were a couple glasses that kept moving, and some that always stayed in the same place. It wasn't a very clear order, more of a syntax really. Okay, what it really was, was some sort of code.

Naruto cocked his head and tried to figure it out. He didn't get anywhere before Kakashi handed over the money and walked away from the counter.

"What's the key?" Naruto asked as his sensei walked past.

"Key to what?" Kakashi brushed him off.

"Oh, come on. Don't do that to me. The key to the cup, glass, mug... code... thing.

"I don't know what you are talking about Naruto." Kakashi smiled as they walked out the door.

"Yeah you do! You were just using it back there, with the innkeeper"

"I think you had one too many bumps on the head this morning Naruto." Kakashi ruffled Naruto's hair. Naruto snarled in response. Hopefully he would share his super secret intel from the innkeeper in their morning briefing; which looked like it was just about to start.

Kakashi called Team Seven and began: "Okay, so I am glad to see you all up bright and early this morning!"

"It's ten, sensei. There is nothing early about this." Naruto felt a little bit better knowing he wasn't the only person in the world who was on the receiving end of Sakura's patented sass.

"I know, aren't nobles great? Anyway, lets start our early morning briefing." Team Seven hadn't gotten in-sync on a lot of things, team maneuvers were still a long way off for them. However they had gotten one thing down pat: the team eyeroll. Team Seven demonstrated it for Kakashi. Naruto thought their teacher almost looked... proud.

"So what can you tell me about Dark Trail Tunnel?" Kakashi asked looking down at them with interest.

Naruto didn't wait to raise his hand to start speaking, "Dark Trail Tunnel is the most traveled part of a naturally occurring cave system that stretches over hundreds of miles in the north central area of The Land of Fire. Traders often use it to cut their travel time because it is easier to walk through the cave than the hills above it. It is believed to have been formed over millions of years as an underground river ate away at the softer rock deep underground. The largest, and most explore paths connect three points; one just north of Konoha, one fifty miles to the east and one forty-two mile to the north-northeast, near Lord Annoying's holdings. It became usable as a means of travel after the battle at the Valley of End. The battle between the First Hokage and Uchiha Madara changed the geography of the region so much that it diverted one of the underground rivers major tributaries. Over the next several years the caves drained as the weather patterns shifted and the annual rainfall decreased, a direct result of the changed landscape. That being said, there is still running water at the lowest points of the cave, and no one has actually been able to measure how deep the river is. The first time that the cave system was used was during the Warring States period shortly after the formation of Konoha. It was at that time still mostly full of water, but the dry portions managed to provide an adequate hiding place for general Matsuda when he was-"

"Oh would you just shut up!" Sakura finally burst in, "None of that is important!"

"Sure it is. All of it is important."

"No," Kakashi shook his head, "No, not all of it was important, Naruto. But there were several important things that Naruto said. Can you expand on them Sakura."

There was a long pause and Sakura looked down at the ground, embarrassed, "No, sensei. I wasn't really listening." Naruto was a little miffed to say the least, not only did she cut him off before he got to the really cool battle stories between Matsuda and Fujiwara or the Nonaka expedition, but she hadn't been listening to him at all! The least she could do was listen! Really, Naruto would have bet that if she had been reading what Naruto had just said out of a book she would have memorized every word! What good was it to show off for a girl if she wasn't even going to pay attention?

"I understand why you didn't listen to Naruto, Sakura, however I can tell you for a fact that a lot of mission briefings are just as long winded as Naruto's explanations - and certainly more boring. Sometimes it is important to know the history of the area you're mission will take you to, however in this case not so much. Sasuke, what were some of the more useful things that Naruto said?"

"Hmm," Sasuke thought, "He mentioned that the cave was well traveled, but mostly unexplored. There are three major entrances to the cave and there is still a running river inside of it."

"Exactly." Kakashi nodded before turning back away from Sasuke, "Now, Sakura, why are those things important?"

"Well, ahh," Sakura was stalling, Naruto could tell. Honestly he didn't get why those things were so important, he figured the stuff about the First Hokage and Madara or the wars were a lot more interesting. "Since the cave is mostly unexplored, people are bound to get lost, but that shouldn't be too bad, as long as they can find the river - I suppose. You could probably live in there for quite a while, as long as you had some kind of food... Oh! Oh! I know! It's a perfect setup for bandits to ambush trades people."

"Correct!" Kakashi gave her the most sarcastic thumbs up Naruto had ever seen. "I am sure," he continued, "that in Naruto's scroll, we would probably find descriptions of some of the more dangerous places along our path. Let's see, shall we?"

Naruto smiled a little inside as he activated the seal in his _Thieves' Sleeves _to retrieve the scroll. He could tell that right now, he was winning their little bet. Soon Sasuke would be wearing orange right along side him! Bwahahahahahahah!

After they had gone over the map in Naruto's scroll and compared it with Sakura's more up to date map (Negative points for Naruto for not having the latest information), Kakashi stood up with one last thing to say. "Now, I think it should be pretty obvious, but no one has so far mentioned one last important factor about Dark Trail Tunnel. Can anyone guess what?"

"The poisonous wildlife?" Sasuke guessed. Kakashi shook his head.

"The recent drop off in travel and the mystery of why?" Sakura tried. Kakashi happily shot her down.

"The territorial wars between Yakuza that crop up every so often?" Naruto suggested. Kakashi pointed up. "I got it?" Naruto was surprised, that didn't seem like something that would be more important than poisonous wildlife. Things that could kill you without you even realizing it seemed more important than a bunch of low life thugs in his opinion.

"Nope." Kakashi radiated a giggly glow and continued to point up into the bright mid-morning sky.

"You going to tell us?" Naruto asked.

"Nope."

"Give us a hint?" Sakura prompted.

Kakashi was practically glowing with boyish glee. "I am."

"You're what."

"I am giving you a hint."

"What, there are a bunch of gleeful perverts hiding in there somewhere? Cause that's the only thing I'm catching here. What about you Sasuke?" Naruto glanced over at his sullen friend to find him staring up at the sky. "You okay there, Duck-butt? Something wrong with the sky?"

"Hm."

"Whatever," Naruto didn't feel like spending the effort required to break Sasuke out of his shell. So he turned back to his annoying sensei. He was still there, eye closed, pointing up at the sky in his annoying way. Some hint this was. Really it probably had something to do with that stupid conversation that he was having through the cups with the innkeeper. Part of him, the part that sounded kind of like Deadpan, said that idea was totally ridiculous. Naruto chose not to listen to it. Really, Cock-eye-sensei was having way too much fun torturing them like this. He was just standing there as Sakura listed off increasingly strange ideas.

"It's dark." Sasuke mumbled as he stared up at the sky.

"What?" Naruto looked up at the sky. "No it's not. That would be the deep recesses of your soul, Sasuke. Actually it is pretty bright out..." Naruto stopped. Oh. Yeah well, that made sense now that he thought about it. He was kind of mad at himself for not thinking of it first. It was really really obvious; so obvious that it could (and did) easily get past him. "It's dark," he agreed.

Sakura looked at them like they were nuts. Naruto caught Sasuke's eye, "It's dark," they said in unison.

"Huh?" Now she was getting visibly frustrated. It was actually kind of funny watching her get so worked up about this.

"It's dark." Kakashi intoned.

"What?"

Together, the three males of Team Seven said: "It's dark."

"What is? What is dark."

"The caaaaaavvvvvveeeeee." Naruto moaned and reached out to Sakura like he was a creature of the undead. Yeah, it earned him another red mark on his cheek, but it was totally worth it.

"Oooohhh." Sakura's shoulders slumped, "night-vision, ambush, duh!" Pressed her palm to her forehead trying to get over the stupidity of it all. "Wait..." Suddenly her head snapped up in horror. Naruto had the same idea at the same time. Hanging from Cock-eye-sensei's hand was a thin red strip of cloth. A blindfold. This could only mean one thing.

"One of you is going to get to do some training exercises!" Kakashi stated, gleefully

Team Seven exchanged glances. "Training exercises" were Cock-eye-sensei's name for anything that would inconvenience his students and amuse himself. Sometimes they were helpful, most of the time Naruto thought they were pretty stupid. Yeah, so he could climb a mountain with one hand tied behind his back now, what was the point in that, he had two arms. Or what about memorizing the scent of over three hundred wild flowers, when was that ever going to come in handy? Nonetheless when their crazy teacher got these ideas in his head, there was no escaping them.

"Who wants to do it this time."

Naruto turned and held out his fist. There was only one way to decide this. With determined nods the others agreed.

"Jun... ken... po!"

Paper. Rock. Scissors. Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, respectively.

A balanced tie.

" .po!"

Rock. Scissors. Paper.

"Junkenpo!"

Scissors. Paper. Rock.

Rock. Paper. Scissors.

Paper. Scissors. Rock.

Paper. Rock. Scissors. Rock. Scissors. Paper. Paper. Rock. Scissors. Rock Scissors Paper. scissors paper rock paper scissors rock rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors rock rock scissors paper rock scissors scissors paper rock rock scissors paper rock paper scissors rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors paper rock scissors paper rock paper scissors rock rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors rock rock scissors paper rock scissors scissors paper rock rock scissors paper rock paper scissors rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors paper rock scissors paper rock paper scissors rock rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors rock rock scissors paper rock scissors scissors paper rock rock scissors paper rock paper scissors rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors paper rock scissors paper rock paper scissors rock rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors rock rock scissors paper rock scissors scissors paper rock rock scissors paper rock paper scissors rock paper scissors scissors rock paper scissors paper rock... it went on.

Finally, _finally, _the games ended. Paper, paper, rock; Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke.

"Finally! It's over!" Sakura went to the ground with relief. Really only about fifteen minutes had passed but that was a lot to play rock, paper, scissors for. It was much longer than normal. Usually on the days that Naruto had practiced with Team Seven their games only lasted about eight minutes.

"Okay, Sasuke," Kakashi eye-smiled, "You're going to need to wear this until we get to the cave. After that you can take it off and surprise anyone who tries to ambush us. For added effect, I would suggest using a transformation jutsu to hide yourself as a blind person, that way people don't get suspicious."

"Okay, but how am I going to get to the cave without tripping all the time?"

"Well, you'll just have to use your other senses now won't you. Now don't think we're going to slow down for your sake, Sasuke."

Not that it actually mattered any. The nobles that they were guiding set a fairly slow pace, one that even a blind Sasuke could easily keep up with without too much trouble. Naruto had to admit there was something satisfying about watching the boy stumble and trip, but it wasn't nearly as funny as he thought it would have been.

The thing that was stuck on Naruto's mind was the fact that something was wrong here, and as much as he liked saying he was just as good as Sasuke, Naruto felt like they were leaving themselves weaker now for the possible advantage that his eyes might afford later on. Even when he linked the chakra labels to a barrier seal he had stored in his sleeves, Naruto didn't feel any better. The barriers honestly weren't the best - he still had a lot to learn about them - and they were only set to appear when either Sakura or Sasuke knew they were in danger. Which might not be very helpful in this instance.

Naruto's confidence slowly rose as Sasuke quickly adapted to walking without his eyesight, but he was still bothered. Partly to take his mind off things, partly to allay his fears Naruto pulled out one of the proximity seals that he hadn't given to Hinata. He didn't have the Byakugan to check his results, but it was better than nothing.

It was around mid-afternoon when Sakura first spotted the opening to the Dark Trail Tunnel. It wasn't exactly impressive to look at, just a grass covered depression in the ground. It actually didn't look very different from the other sinkholes they had come across throughout the day. Maybe a little deeper. It matched the description of the southernmost entrance to Dark Trail Tunnel from the books though and the road led right down into it. As the got closer, Naruto could see that the road made a sharp curve and seemed to disappear into the steeper western edge of the sinkhole. In the center of the depression there was a small cabin, with a little smoke escaping out of a chimney.

When they reached the small house they found that it had been lovingly named "The Way Point" as related by the beautiful little wood carving. Naruto studied it for a second or two. Suddenly he realized that he was staring at a piece of wood that told him what the name of the building was. That was stupid and there were people talking, why was he not listening to them?

"No, no. I don't think we'll need protection. We'll be quite fine I think." Kakashi said to the fat old lady standing in the door frame of the house.

"Are you sure now? They've been saying strange things have been happening in the Tunnel. Some of them have even said a demon lives in there now. Now I don't believe the stories myself, by my boys, they know the Tunnel like the back of their hand. It's dark in there so people have been known to disappear." The lady replied nodding toward the crack in the earth the road lead into.

"See, see. I told you!" Tobomaru jumped off of the cart (with an earthshaking grump) and waddled up to Kakashi.

"Togumaru-san," Kakashi tried to calm down their employer, "remember we are ninja of Konoha. If there is a petty demon, I assure you we will be able to handle it. If worse comes to worse I am a well known Jonin, so I should be more than sufficient to protect you from any petty demons. That is if they exist."

"Konoha ninja?" The old lady looked surprised. There was something else in her face, just for a second, but Naruto couldn't see what it was. Sasuke probably would have been better at catching, but he was blindfolded at the time, Sakura might have caught it but she wasn't paying very much attention to the old woman. Currently Sakura was trying not to kill herself as she guarded the cart and Lord Annoying. "But these are children."

"We are genin team seven." Naruto explained for Kakashi - he was too busy with Tobomaru's drunken hysterics to answer.

"Aren't there normally three of you in a team." She asked turning to him.

Naruto couldn't resist giving Sasuke - transformed to look like a blind old lady that almost looked like a relative of Tobomaru - a side long glance. "Not always," he answered, "sometimes exceptions have to be made."

"I see. So you think you'll be all right in there?"

"Oh yes," Naruto smile, "I think we should have enough time to make it to the Crystal Chamber tonight... if we don't stay here too much longer."

"Have you been this way before? I don't think I've seen you."

"No, ma'am. Just read about it in books. I like to read."

"I see. Say, what's your name boy?" The old lady came out of the doorway and bent over to give Naruto a closer inspection.

"Uzumaki Naruto! Heir of Senju Hon and curator of the Bastards Collection!" Naruto answered proudly.

The corners of the old lady's mouth hid themselves in the fleshy wrinkles as her smile grew. "Well, I hope everything does go smoothly for you." As she stood up Naruto could actually hear the pops and snaps of her old bones moving. It was disgusting. "I know," the only lady said brightly, "why don't I give you a little food to take with you. You know, just as a snack, you look like you could use one."

"Oh, that would be awesome!" Naruto grinned, he was never ever one to turn down food. Some one would have to be some kind of idiot not to take free food.

"Why don't I go get some for you than? I'll be back in just a second."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The old lady who lived in The Way Point sagged against the door. Turning her head carefully she watched the band of Konoha Ninja and the Lords pull into the caves mouth. She reached out and flipped the switch next to the door off. She knew she had given the ones in the cave enough time to get into position.

And should her boys fail... again... than at least that lunch box should be enough to make some gain come from the whole venture. After all, Uzumaki Naruto had a price on his head - and the Fish Bones were not going to let that just slip through their fingers.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"You know you really shouldn't eat food from strangers." Sasuke-obaa-chan grumbled. As Naruto pulled off the lid of the small lunch box that he had been give. It definitely smelled good. In fact that was probably the reason Sasuke had come over here. Naruto slid the bottom part of the lunch box into the red lid and began to dig in. And yes, for those wondering, the Takoyaki was very good. Suddenly yet another thing had jumped up to near the top of Naruto's list of favorite foods. It would be hard to replace ramen, but this stuff was pretty close.

"Meh, she seemed nice enough. Plus it's really good. Want some?" Naruto extended the box to Sasuke-obaa-chan. Too bad that he tripped before he could grab one. Naruto shrugged and then shivered. Something didn't feel right.

It was the proximity sensors. There was a funny tingling on his wrist. Pulling back his sleeve Naruto noticed that the seal mark had suddenly grown a lot wider, probably darker too, if he could see the difference. Naruto pulled a little bit of chakra and filled it with intent. Pushing it through the seal Naruto hoped he could see the number, but alas it was too dark. He brought it closer and squinted.

Ten.

"Ahh, hey, Obaa-chan."

Sasuke flinched when Naruto called over to him, he didn't seem particularly fond of this name, but it would have to be maintained for cover. "There are some dangerous rocks around here. A lot of them really. About ten big dangerous rocks. Ones that just might sneak up on you. Maybe even kill you. You should be careful, Obaa-chan."

"Naruto, I'm blind, not stupid." Sasuke-obaa-chan retorted.

Naruto heaved a sigh of relief, Sasuke had gotten the message. Then the shadow of Naruto's transformed teammate reached up and appeared to scratch her eye. The silhouette of the old lady looked around in the dark. Suddenly, moving faster than any little old lady had any right to move, an arm whipped out and there was the sound of a kunai striking flesh.

"Aaarge!" A voice rang out in the dark.

"Shit," another voiced hissed from somewhere behind Naruto, on the other side of the cave. Naruto realized that they were surrounded by at least ten people... and Sasuke had just pissed them off.

"They know we're here!" The voice behind Naruto - probably a leader of some sort, or at least a responsible bandit - called out an attack order. The light that Kakashi had been carrying was knocked out of his hand by a thrown rock, and the cave suddenly became very dim indeed. From there the cave descended into chaos.

Naruto still couldn't see very well in the darkness. But around him he heard feet and sliding rocks and heavy breathy. Sasuke's shadowy silhouette burst forward and there was a brief slapping crunching sound and a shout of pain. Naruto swung around and tried to face the direction he had heard the leaderly voice coming from. He thought he could see some movement in the dark, but his eyes weren't sure. There was a sound to the left of him and instincts kicked in. Naruto dropped to the ground and heard something slice through the air, probably about where his neck would have been.

That was enough though, Naruto jammed out his leg for a low, blind kick. His shin connected with something that was definitely not rock. There was a thump and the person who had been attacking him was on the ground. Naruto didn't need to be able to see to kick a man while he was down. Jumping up, Naruto guessed where the man had fallen and curb stomped him. Judging from the squeal of pain, and the general impression his foot got of the body, Naruto had been lucky enough to get the man in the groin.

Something told Naruto to turn around. When he did, his eyes picked up something moving rapidly toward him. There was nothing he could do aside from brace for impact. So brace Naruto did. And brace. And brace. And brace some more. Where the heck was that impact?

Opening his eyes, Naruto found that the bandit that had been coming after him had found himself on the cave floor. In fact, Sasuke seemed to be introducing the man's face and the rock rather forcefully. The man seemed so happy about this fortuitous introduction that he was practically gushing. Or at least his broken nose was.

"Ahh, thanks."

"Duck."

"What. No... you're duck-butt, I'm Naruto. Get it right." Naruto grinned. The grin quickly disappeared when Sasuke launched a kunai that nearly impaled his eye. There was a kind of squishy sound uncomfortably close behind Naruto shortly followed by a very pained grunt. Naruto kicked behind him, his body going horizontal for a second. Naruto guessed he got the bandit in the gut.

The tingling sensation started to fade away in Naruto's wrist. Sasuke, apparently he dropped the disguise somewhere in the fight, smirked and jumped away, plowing into one of the few assailants remaining standing. As Naruto watched he noticed two things: one, that his eyes must finally be finished adjusting to the dimness because he could quite clearly see his teammate deliver a rib-cracking kick, and two, that it would have been a lot funnier to see Sasuke-obaa-chan kicking the fairly scrappy bandit instead of the twelve year old Uchiha. Oh well, just another missed opportunity.

Quickly the sounds of battle died out. Naruto checked the deeper shadows that lined the walls of the cave. Once he was sure that new bandits wouldn't jump out of them he walked over and picked up Kakashi's light. Holding the lamp up, Naruto checked the seal mark on his wrist.

"Hey, how many of them are still conscious?" he called out.

"Err, I don't know, three?" Sakura answered back.

"And how many are... umm... not."

"Four unconscious, two of them look like their dead... or at least heading that way." Sakura again answered.

Naruto's brow wrinkled in thought. Why would his proximity sensor only register conscious people? Sure it doubled as a cool countdown feature, but Naruto wasn't exactly sure where in his crafting he made such instructions. It seemed like an odd stipulation to have. Hopefully there weren't too many ways to exploit this oddity. Naruto mentally added this to his list of questions to answer once he got back home.

Clap, clap, clap.

Kakashi casually strolled up through the bodies. "Very good, very good. Everyone safe?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you." Naruto grumbled, "I mean what's the point of sending us into a cave, with only one light and just having us waltz right into an ambush. Somebody could have gotten hurt! I mean, what about our clients?" Naruto jabbed a finger at the cart where Tobomaru, Lord Annoying, and Jaki clustered.

"Naruto, the client is over there." Sakura pointed to the empty space somewhere to the left of the cart.

"Whaaa! Genjutsu? Graaah!" Naruto stamped his foot.

"Actually, Naruto, you got this one right. The genjutsu one is the one that you see Sakura." The space that Sakura had pointed to seemed to shift a little bit, like a mirror being jiggled around. When it died down the part of the cave looked somehow more natural. "However, yes. A fairly simple, but low key genjutsu. As for the why? Two reasons: one, it was fun; two, to teach you something."

"What were we supposed to learn?" Sakura asked, sounding about as skeptical as Naruto felt.

"How to fight in environments that are not to your advantage."

"So, then why have Sasuke go blind all day to keep his night vision?"

Kakashi shrugged, "So you all didn't get slaughtered." How he could say something so damning in such a casual way, Naruto would never know. It was just wrong on so many levels. Cock-eye-sensei walked over to one of the still conscious, but groin-grasping, bandits and gave him a not so gentle kick.

"Hey, are there any more of you lot deeper in?"

"No." The man squeaked as Cock-eye-sensei dragged him up from the ground. When asked again the man responded with an even more emphatic negative. This seemed to satisfy Kakashi, who dropped him and ordered Team Seven to start pulling the bodies out of the way of the cart. From his corner where he was bound the man spat at them, "You're all going to die anyway!"

In a flash Kakashi had him pressed against the wall, feet hovering inches above the cave floor. "I thought you said there weren't any more of you lot deeper in. You weren't lying to me now were you?" He sounded too cute to be safe.

The man squealed and shook his head, "No! I mean the demon! You'll never make it out alive with that thing in here. Not now."

"Oh, no." Kakashi shook his head and dropped the man, "I think we'll be just fine. Thank you very much."

All in all Naruto felt pretty good about the whole fight. No one - aside from the bandits - had gotten hurt, only Sasuke had expended any resources or even gotten blood on his cloths, and now that their eyes were finally adjusting, attacks like that would be easier to handle. Oh, and he was practically glowing with pride about how his proximity sensor worked. The margin of error, even on this test run had been wonderfully small! Better than he had ever hoped for. He didn't think he'd be able to contain himself if someone asked. The cherry on top of the whole experience was the lunch box that he had managed to seal at the very last second before all hell broke loose. He was totally going to reward himself for such a good job.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Penguin-san had watched the fight carefully from afar. The night vision seals on his mask had been more than enough for him to see the yakuza members hiding in the smaller crevices of the cave. However, his job was to not interfere as much as possible. The small briefing note that he had gotten from the Hokage had mentioned that any help was liable to make the council throw off the legitimacy of the mission. Apparently that was bad. Penguin-san didn't know why, but it was.

What the ANBU really wanted to know was how the boy had figured out that there were ten bandits without apparently seeing them. There was something odd about his wrist, he had looked at it just before he had let out the painfully obvious warning to the Uchiha - perhaps a seal? Penguin-san didn't know.

It would probably make his mission a lot more difficult; if the boys track record was anything to go by.

Oh well. Just another day in the life of Penguin-san the ANBU. Goody.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The head of the Fish Bone Gang was most displeased with the team that came crawling back from the ambush. Not only had they let the targets go - beaten by three genin as far as he could get from the descriptions - but they had brought back dead! Two bodies had been drug through the cave back into their hideout.

What was the point of setting up a secret base, if there were blood trails leading toward it. Sure the average joe might not notice, but people were hiring NINJA now!

Bloody NINJA!

He hated ninja. Pompous, self centered, tyrannical, psychotic, overpowered freaks!

His last business - yeah, the one over in the Land of Waves - totally demolished thanks to a team of Konoha Ninja! Gato was glad that he had gotten out of that when he could. He once had the idea of hiring a ninja - one of those mercenary ones - to take out the bridge builder, but then he had gone to Konoha. Screw that! He had been out of that country for weeks when his second in command had gotten cocky and tried to attack the builder. Served the idiot right, what happened to him. Now the fool was stuck in some cell in Konoha.

Now what happened. His new lucrative business had been going so well. Then suddenly: ninja. Konoha Ninja.

Then his agent goes and tells him that not only did those fools not get any loot out of this, they missed taking out Uzumaki Naruto. The kid that had shown up last night with a nice price on his head - from Konoha no less.

Now they were actually going to have to go into the cave to collect that price.

Idiots! This was coming out of their pay check!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

She woke up.

Blood.

That was what she smelled.

Warm blood. Spilled blood. Pumping blood. Blood that was moving closer to her that it had since...

...since the time that blood stopped moving toward her.

She stood up, sniffed the air. And began to move toward the smell.

The pale, ghostly girl weaved her way through the dark tunnels deep beneath the earth. Silently she slipped into the crystal clear river and began swimming toward where the blood was. She could smell it even in the water. She slipped into a small gap in the stone wall and moved into the place where people once walked.

The moon was coming and she was getting hungrier.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto - who had the dubious distinction of the one holding the light - held it up as they entered into the largest chamber they had passed through all day. As the cave widened out, a subtle rush of air escaped from (two of the three) genin. It was certainly different from the drab cave that they had visited so far.

It was first and foremost, huge. You could probably fit the whole Hokage tower in the room at least twice over. Naruto could only see the faintest glimmer of the slick, shimmering white walls on the far side, and the light didn't reach the high roof of the room. Secondly, it was beautiful. The rock that this cathedral of stone was made of glistened with pure white crystals.

The dripping, dropping, sliding water had done something strangely different with this huge chamber. There in the center of the room there was a great dark chasm. Naruto knew from his research that the ancient underground river had cut that canyon, he knew that there was probably an end to the chasm, but it looked like an infinite black rend in the white world. The huge room above the chasm had been formed drop by drop over tens of thousands of years.

The shiny crystals had been lumped up in strangely organic shapes, and built huge pearly stalactites and stalagmites. Over the millennia some had formed into giant tree like columns that disappeared into the darkness above them. Naruto had the strangest sensation of walking through a room made of bleached bone.

All around them drips echoed as they fell from the tooth like rock formations that peeked out of the darkness. It was eerie and calm... and beautiful.

"Did you know," Naruto couldn't help himself from spilling a little bit of the history he knew about this place, "that when the first explorers found this place, they thought they had stumbled into part of the afterlife. They first tried to call it the Palace of the Shinigami."

Beside him Sakura nodded, "I can believe it."

"One more thing: don't be so slow. And one more thing: we are on schedule. And one more thing..." Welp, that broke the spell. The group started moving down the dulled path. The path that people had used over the decades had slowly turned into this ugly grey brown that showed like an ugly scar. Naruto heard Sakura mumble something about it being a crime to defile something this beautiful. As he looked at the stalagmites that had been broken and carved the road, he had to agree. These things had taken so much longer to make - even the smallest ones - than a human could even imagine. It really was a crime against nature to just pluck them out like some kind of cheap souvenir. Part of him wondered if it could be possible to make a seal that would just electrocute anyone who tried to touch anything off the path.

Maybe, but it would take a huge amount of work and even more chakra. Something on the order of one live sacrifice per day, just to keep the seal running. For an effective seal? Oh gawd. Naruto shut that thought down. Sometimes big numbers were funny, this time they weren't.

They would be setting up camp, it seemed, in a much smaller chamber just on the other side of this one. Honestly, by now, Naruto was ready for a break.

As they passed over the funny rock bridges (obviously built by humans) Naruto spared a glance down the giant chasm. The nearly infinite darkness seemed to stare back at him. He could hear the quiet rushing of the underground river way down below faintly. It sounded almost like breathing. Naruto shivered and quickened his pace.

"Ehh, this place is giving me the creeps." Sakura said.

Naruto had to agree. The chamber was beautiful, but the longer he stayed here the creepier it seemed. "Yeah, I can see why the cults wanted it."

"Cults? What cults?" Sakura looked back at Naruto.

He shrugged, "Well before the path way we're taking was discovered there were a couple of groups that used this as some sort of meeting place. They seemed to think it was sacred. I think there are still remains somewhere here from their ceremonies, if you wanted to look for them."

"No thank you." Sakura shook her head.

"Yeah, me neither."

The smaller chamber that they set up camp in was significantly less creepy than the Crystal Chamber. It was also significantly cozier and there were the remains of several fires that other travelers had left behind. All in all it seemed like this was a fairly good place to stop for the night. The walls didn't have any cracks that could lead to darker unexplored branches of the cave and the room was just big enough to hold a respectable size caravan. From a ninja's point of view it was easily defended as both the entrance and the exits were easy to cover and there wouldn't be any surprises.

When they pulled in, Naruto was more than happy to get off his feet. Unfortunately there was still work to be done, so rest would have to wait until after they had set up camp.

The Lords were fussing with... something. Naruto didn't particularly want to get close enough to find out because that would likely incur the wrath of Lord Annoying. Anyway, it didn't seem to be all that important, and besides Sasuke was on watch duty at the moment and Naruto's own proximity sensors didn't seem to be picking up anything out of the ordinary. So he had absolutely no reason to go over there and subject himself to the tortures that were Tobomaru and Lord Annoying. However, he was close enough to hear Sakura ask a question that he hadn't thought of yet.

"Sensei," she asked, "why don't you seem to be worried about the demon that everybody says lives here? I mean, we know demons actually exist - the Kyuubi was enough proof of that - so why are you taking this thing as a joke. Shouldn't we be worried if someone says there's a demon about?"

"No, not really," Kakashi shrugged, "the likelihood that there really is a demon here is pretty low. Most of them have either gone into hiding - really good hiding - or been sealed away. A lot of the villages went on a kind of cleaning spree after demons were used in the last Great Shinobi War, so there aren't a lot of them left. Besides, if there was a demon here, it would most likely be a Petty Demon."

"Petty Demon? So what, they steal small amounts of cash? Why are they called petty." Sakura looked up from the trap that she was setting around her tent.

"No, no," Naruto answered. After discovering his tenant, Naruto had asked Hon to teach him about demons. In the old librarians characteristic style he had started asking Naruto questions, forcing him to start looking through the library for answers. The result had been a day or two of research on demons. However, after that something in Naruto had turned sour and he had stopped looking into the subject. Still he had a much deeper understanding of the subject than most. Seeing Kakashi's sign, he continued: "Petty - in this case - means something more like 'common.' So Petty Demons are mostly just your normal, run of the mill demon. Using the standard ranking system they tend to be about C - maybe low B - rank. There is a little deviation depending on who they possess, but most petty demons could be held off by a good genin team."

"And you should be just fine if we actually come across one. Worse comes to worse I might have to step in." Kakashi shrugged and went back to his book. (So that was the reason he had monopolized the light, Naruto realized.)

"So, what other kind of demons are there?" Sakura turned to Naruto.

Naruto's heart fluttered; Sakura was actually turning to him for information! "Umm, well. There are High Demons, usually B to low A ranked, Arch-demons who are either A or S ranked, and then Special Demons, which usually get their own name and are pretty much all S+ ranked."

"So what was the Kyuubi?"

Okay, it was an innocent enough question for her to ask, Naruto rationalized. The Kyuubi was the most well known demon in Konoha. Plus there was no way for her to know that said incarnation of destruction was currently stuck inside Naruto's belly. Still, Naruto couldn't help flinching when the name was brought up.

"Ahh, it was part of a line of Special Demons called the Tailed Beast. So obviously it was S+ ranked. Though, specifically the Kyuubi is known as the most powerful of all the Tailed Beast, putting it somewhere around the most powerful creature in existence... or at least that we know of."

"Whoa! Really! And the Fourth beat it? Amazing. I mean I knew he was strong and everything; but to beat one of the most powerful creatures in existence..."

"Yeah," Naruto scratched the back of his neck. "Hey, you want a seal for your tent Sakura? I could make you one!"

"What so you can sneak inside in the middle of the night? I don't think so, pervert!" Thankfully there were live traps in between Naruto and Sakura, otherwise she probably would have extracted grievous harm on him.

Naruto stepped back and threw up his hands, "No, really. I can key it into your chakra signature so that only you can open it, trust me!"

"Go bug somebody else Naruto!"

Naruto heaved a sigh of relief. Suddenly things were back to normal so Naruto went back to building the seals to defend their camp. Nothing really big, but it was better than doing nothing right now.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

She slipped out of the frigid water when the smell grew strong enough. She had been swimming for a long time and the smell had grown stronger. The air was brimming with the scent here.

She remembered this as being one of the places where blood had come regularly, but that had been weeks. She had abandoned this place when the blood stopped coming this way.

One pale hand grabbed onto the rocky wall and slowly she began to climb. Even in complete darkness she scaled the slick rocky walls with ease. All the time as she went the smell grew even more intoxicating. Some of this blood was different from the blood she had had before; it some other savory flavor hidden in it.

Then suddenly there was blood moving toward her. Licking her lips and tasting the air she turned toward the source of the smell. Hesitance. Boldness. Youth. Ego. Exertion. Sweat. Strength. Anger. Brooding. A particularly full bladder. Delicious.

Drool trickled from the corner of her mouth, over her chin, and down her neck. She could already taste the tender flesh and warm blood of this one. Letting him pass was not an option.

She climbed up the wall like a spider, scuttling easily over the slick stones and crystals until she could see her meal.

Dark hair, dark eyes. He stood by the gaping chasm and set down the light he was carrying. As he did so she moved carefully into its shadows and toward the boy. He fiddled with something and then began to relieve himself into the darkness. Her ears could pick up both the boy's sighs, and the quiet splashes as his product landed on the jagged stone walls.

Closer.

She could see the dark blue cloth that the boy wore on his chest. That had to go. Blood didn't taste as good strained through dyed fabric - this she had learned. She could smell that he had metal on him.

Closer.

The boy had finished his business and began reaching for his light.

Closer.

The blood turned his back on her.

There!

The boy didn't even have time to scream. Her fingers snared his ankle and before he could even register that she swung him into the darkness below.

She held the limp body in one hand as she clung to the wall. Longingly she looked at the smear of brains just below her.

It was sad. That was her favorite part.

Oh well. There were others.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sakura looked up from the small fire that the Lords had made to cook their meal. (Unfortunately for them on a mission like this, it was nutrition bars when they were away from stable lodging.) "Hey, where's Sasuke?"

Naruto shrugged and point into the darkness, "He went to go take a leek."

Her face scrunched up in disgust.

"What? He had to go just like everyone else. He's only human Sakura. I mean he'd have to be some kind of freak to be able to train that away. Though, I wonder... could you do it with a seal?" Naruto paused to think, "yes, yes, you probably could. Probably pretty easy to, but I sure as heck am not going to be the one to apply it. Sakura, if you want a Sasuke, sans movements, you're on your own. Plus, I'd hate to be around him if there is some kind of problem and the storage space fails OH RAMEN, NOT THE FACE! NOT THE FACE!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

She licked the last bits of blood off her fingers and stood up. He had made a nice meal, but there was still blood in the cave. The smell was just too good. She had to have more.

Oh, they would never find the boy's bones. She left them down on the little ledge where she had had her meal, in a couple days - for whatever reason - the river would rise and wash away the broken and hollowed out bones.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Onyx: And there we go. It's a little bit shorter than normal, but I couldn't resist.

Psycho: Oh My Gawd! I can't believe you actually went and killed him.

Onyx: I know! I was kind of surprised myself when it happened.

Psycho: What do you mean you were surprised? You're the one in charge of this thing! You control this!

Onyx: You'd be kind of surprised. I mean sometimes I have very little control of anything in my story - it just kind of happens.

Psycho: Just happens. JUST HAPPENS?! How can death just happen! You can't just go killing people off willy nilly! Who do you think you are? George R. R. Martin?

Onyx: Heh, I wish. No. Sometimes I'm just writing and things just kind of flow and then they keep flowing and then suddenly... dead.

Psycho: What? How? Think of the consequences.

Onyx: I know, I know. But I guess I'll just have to live with it. I mean it will all work out in the end I'm sure.

Psycho: Work out?! WORK OUT?!

Onyx: Look, can we just forget about him for now.

Psycho: No! I will not forget about him! How could you be that callous, that wanton, that... oh what am I saying; wanton, unplanned, reckless destruction is right up my alley. Good job.

Onyx: I try.


	10. Chapter 10

Matto slipped on the slimy ground of the cave. Trust the kid to get lost. He was always doing this: disappearing for an hour or two until someone discovered him curled up in a dark corner staring out into space. The others in the gang whispered loudly about the kid behind his back. There were times, many times actually, when Matto would come into a room where the kid was supposed to be working, only to find others cursing him and the kid no where to be found. Oh, they would hush up after they realized that Matto was in the room, but it wasn't healthy for people to be angry with you in a gang.

There were too many disappearances for that.

So now, here was Matto rushing to find the kid, his brother. Again. It was distinctly possible that someone had tried to take care of the kid here. Ventures this deep into the cave were rare and it was the perfect opportunity for someone to strike. Not that anyone would actually get punished for it normally, but now there was an excellent excuse with the demon running amuck here in the the bowels of the earth.

Someday Matto would be picking up the boys things and tossing them in to the darkness. Matto stumbled and began to slide down a slippery slope into the darkness. Frantically he scrambled to keep from falling away. For a second he lost his grip on the lantern he was holding, but years of pickpocketing kicked in at the very last moment and he held fast.

Matto grumbled to himself and moved on, looking for a dark haired kid in a dark blue shirt.

0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Penguin-san frowned. Not that anyone could tell.

His choice of expression was hidden for a variety of reason. The most obvious reason of course being his suggestive penguin mask. The second was that the cave he was now standing in was completely, pitch-black dark. Anyone who wasn't wearing a not-exactly standard ANBU mask from Konoha would have had trouble distinguishing a hand in front of their face from a wall - or a bottomless pit in the earth for that matter. For Penguin-san the ANBU, the cave was relayed by a strange mix of chakra pulses, seals, and echolocation. However had Penguin-san not been wearing a mask and instead been standing in a very well lit cave, no one around him would be able to tell what his expression was; mostly because everyone around Penguin-san at the moment was dead.

And not just the fairly tame bleeding-to-death dead either. Or even the only marginally less tame guts spilling out of the belly dead. No, they were dead, dead. On a scale of one to really flipping dead, there were about a 14. If Penguin-san were a lesser ninja he might have been mildly freaked out about the situation. Because well...

So for example the closest body to Penguin-san... Call him Bob. Why Bob? Well because Bob was a fairly generic name and easy to think of. Of course Bob could be a completely inappropriate name for the body, because Penguin-san wasn't exactly sure that it was a male body. To be fair, he didn't have a lot of information to go off of, because a) it wasn't so much a body as it was a head and b) it wasn't so much of a head as it was the majority of a skull with some flesh still hanging on.

Penguin-san decided to stick with Bob, since there wasn't enough hair to suggest a girl. However that didn't come so much from the chosen hairstyle of the deceased, but more from the fact that the skull was missing most of the back. For that matter it was missing most of the front too. Getting a clue from the face structure... well there wasn't much of a face left either. The jaw had been torn off and the cheek bones cracked so that whatever had killed the party of bandits could get at the tongue and throat. Apparently the mass murderer had a thing for the flesh of man, because Penguin-san could clearly see bite marks and gouges that could only be made by teeth.

Whatever had gone around eating them hadn't been exactly thorough, either. There was still a lot of flesh and organs still on the bodies that lay here and there... and there... and there. It seemed to have a taste for brains, hearts, tongues, eyes, the occasional liver, loins, and the fatty meat of the human rump.

Penguin-san briefly wondered if there were enough body parts left scattered around the area to rebuild at least one working body, but quickly through that idea out. Not enough grey matter left between them all to make one working brain. Plus Penguin-san pretty much knew that he would not enjoy putting together a jigsaw-puzzle like this where he had to go about finding the pieces splayed out over such a large area.

Oh look. The thing had missed a perfectly good leg... now which body was this one supposed to go with?

Oh well, back to Team Seven.

Before Penguin-san completely left the blood soaked cave he noticed something strange - well stranger than everything else he could see. The bite marks were deep, but the mouth seemed very small.

Penguin-san involuntarily shivered - now that was just creepy.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"And one more thing!"

Naruto slapped his hand over his ears. "Please make it stop!" He hissed to the darkness for the umpteenth time. As dinner had started, Sasuke's absence had been noted by Sakura; who of course chose to point it out more than twice. This set of Lord Izo off and he began another rant about "one more thing" after another. Supper had eventually finished - marked with more comments about Sasuke's absence - but Lord Annoying hadn't stopped. At least Sakura had calmed down after Naruto had waved off their teammates absence by telling her he was either training or brooding - which was probably the truth. Izo? Not so much.

Naruto wasn't normally in this kind of mood, but Izo had put him into a foul temper. Izo would just not stop talking. He just kept going! There was never ONLY one more thing: there were a million more things! A billion more things! How anybody so rich, with so many reasons to be happy, could find so many things to complain about baffled Naruto.

But now... Now! It was more than just his complaints. No, that wasn't it, it was less. Naruto was so sick and fed up with him at this point that even just the old man's shrill, hoarse voice was enough to set his teeth on edge. He had never realized just how much he had enjoyed the quiet of the Library. Naruto used to think that he disliked the perfect quiet - it made the place seem too empty - but now, now he would do anything to have some quiet.

"Hey Naruto?" he heard Sakura come up behind him.

"What?" He snapped back and immediately regretted it when his teammate flinched. "Sorry," he tried to make amends, "what's up?"

"Well, I'm just kind of... you know... worried about Sasuke."

"He's a big boy, he can take care of himself, Sakura."

"I know that." Sakura put her hands on her hips and gave him a look, "but he's our teammate."

"So, why don't you go look for him?" Naruto parroted Sakura's akimbo, and had a small amount of pleasure in watching her squirm.

"Well, I!" she sputtered.

"It's alright Sakura, I get it. I'll go look for him. I mean we wouldn't want him getting lost, now would we?" He said and began walking away.

Then Naruto was off. He was sorely tempted to look back and see Sakura's reaction, but now wasn't the time. He hadn't noticed it before because he was too annoyed with Izo, but Sasuke had been gone for far too long. Honestly, now that he thought about it, he was surprised that Kakashi hadn't mentioned something before now. But he was just sitting by his tent reading his book for the who-knows-how-manyth time, lazy-perv. He didn't seem concerned at all. The man probably already knew something and just wasn't letting on.

That was one of the things that annoyed Naruto the most about his sensei. Maybe he had been spoiled by Hon-san who had taken Naruto as an apprentice. Hon had always been about giving knowledge, freely sharing and guiding Naruto to the right answer. Kakashi on the other hand was all about having Naruto figure it out on his own. Hon might have put obstacles in Naruto's way but there was almost always the hint of a pathway. Kakashi posed challenges with no apparent rhyme or reason. Sometimes there seemed to be a moral or a lesson underneath the lesson, but other times it seemed hopeless. "Look underneath the underneath;" was the closest they ever got to an explanation. Like now, this could be some lesson on awareness or teamwork... or it could just be Cock-eye-sensei sitting reading a book, not caring at all about his genin. Naruto was just a little concerned that he couldn't tell which it really was.

Naruto just hoped that if whatever Kakashi was hiding now was important enough, he would tell them.

Naruto didn't like this cave, and the farther away from the fire Naruto go, the worse Naruto felt.

Anyway, there was no time to waist thinking about cold shivers running down spines or tiny icy balls filling up stomachs, there were friends to find! Oh! and a barrier seal to check up on.

Naruto had been kind of proud of the little thing. Yeah, so the barrier probably wasn't all that strong, but he had managed to program it entirely from scratch. He basically knew nothing about barriers - minus the couple of feet of Hon-san's schroll on beginning barriers - but he had managed to get a working barrier field! It was awesome! Also... about seven feet of paper. It was one of the longest seals Naruto had ever made. Okay so a lot of it was just the same content repeated several times, but still it was an impressive amount of content!

Essentially there were four anchor points - two on either end of the smaller room that they had set up camp in - which solidified the edge of the field that the seal center in the camp emitted. If you weren't included in the seal's exception parameter you couldn't enter the room. Okay, well if you tried hard enough you could probably shatter the barrier, but that would cause the seal center to violently react alerting the camp to your presence. All in all a pretty good system.

Naruto squinted his eyes and peered into the darkness. It looked like someone... Someone was standing just on the other side of the barrier field's edge.

Naruto's heart skipped a beat. Someone was squatting just outside their protective barrier. It might have been a trick of the light, but Naruto saw something flash across the persons eyes. Naruto slowed his pace and then stopped. The air suddenly seemed layden and cold, like a bank of winter fog. Naruto knew, the thing sitting there would have no qualms about killing him right where he stood.

"Dweeb. Why can't I get in?"

The killing intent didn't let up any, but Naruto felt a whole lot better knowing that the thing standing up right now was just a ticked off teammate and not a hungry demon.

"Have you tried walking?" Naruto asked, just a little confused about what Sasuke ment.

To demonstrate Sasuke put his reached toward Naruto, but before the hand got even close to Naruto's face something stopped it. A rippling in the dim light and the quiet hum of chakra being converted into a fold in space time was all the indication that Naruto needed to figure out that somehow Sasuke had been locked out of the barrier.

"Er. I- I- I don't know, actually. You should just be able to walk right in. I mean I put you in the exception parameter so... I don't, wait... nope. Haven't a clue. I mean obviously there is some malfunction that is denying you access to the permeability trate, but I haven't the foggiest idea why right now."

"Can you figure it out?" Sasuke prompted.

"Oh, yeah, probably." Naruto replied, but continued to stand there. Sasuke stared at Naruto, Naruto grinned back. Not that Sasuke couple probably tell that Naruto was grinning - it was far too dim for that - but if he could he would have been able to identify the "I'm just doing this to tick you off right now" grin that he was getting. Naruto was actually having a little bit of fun with this: the top ninja in the class, completely locked out by dead last. Ahhh ironic justice; it tasted sweet.

"Well?" Sasuke finally broke after a minute or two.

"Well, what?"

"Have you figured it out yet?"

"No. Haven't actually been trying."

Sasuke grumbled but relented, "Would you let me back into camp so that I can actually eat something?"

"What's the password?"

"What?"

"Nope."

"Naruto, I swear! You better get to work letting me in right now or I am going to kill you."

"That's not even close."

Sasuke stayed silent for a bit. "Please." He said it in the most forced, grumpy, and impolite way possible, but it was still a please, so Naruto consented and walked over to one of the barrier's anchors. He reach out a hand to grab the strip of paper but something stopped him. It was like there was an invisible bowl surrounding the anchor. Which was exactly what was it was supposed to do, people who didn't build shielding routines into their barriers were just dumb. It was supposed to allow him access though.

The exception parameters must have been completely screwed up. Okay so the exception parameters weren't allowing any access to anything, which meant that Naruto couldn't get access to the parameters to fix them. Well, that was annoying... on so many levels.

"What did you screw up this time Naruto?"

"Nothing!" Naruto lied.

"I swear, your seals suck more often than they actually work."

"Hey, shut up. It's harder than it looks."

"Clearly."

Naruto stood their thinking. This complicated things.

"So what are you going to do, now?"

"Umm, well I guess I have to break it."

"Okay, so how long is that going to take."

"I-" Naruto paused for a second, he really did not like to admit it - particularly to Sasuke - but... "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Yeah, I've never actually done it before. I mean I've read some theory, and I usually try to cover the common breaking techniques in my seals, but I've never actually had to break a seal. Normally I just debug. Totally different process, okay not fundamentally, but in practice they have wildly divergent steps. Like... like..."

Naruto didn't need to see Sasuke's 'don't give me that crap' look. It was practically ingrained in Naruto's mind now; it was one of his favorite 'Sasuke expression.' He only had four or five so it was a pretty easy choice. It was the one where the left side of his face kind of drooped down and the right corner of his mouth pinched together.

"I'll give it a shot, jeez. Okay?"

Naruto reached back into his memory, ignored the shiney other things that threatened to distract him. Seals were made of up of content and intent. Content told the seal how to work, intent told the seal what to do. Right now the content was screwed up so he would have to re-manage the intent. He reached out his hand and tried extending his consciousness like the old scroll had said. At first nothing happened, and nothing probably would have continued to happen had Naruto not remembered his glowing kunai exercises. The way that his body felt like it was growing into the blade, Naruto figured that had to be at least similar to the expanded consciousness that seal breaking needed.

Slowly... something... seemed to change. It was like watching night descend, the stars seemed like they would never come out and then suddenly there were stars - like they had been there all along. Naruto didn't know when he could feel the seal, but suddenly there was something on the very edge of his awareness. Naruto tried to grab for it, but it skittered away from his mental grasp. Every time he thought he had it, it suddenly faded. Finally Naruto just gave up and let it come to him. Naruto hated how most things were like that: try to get it and nothing, forget about it and it became the easiest thing in the world. Stupid ironic world.

The seal felt like light woven into an ethereal fabric. Shimmering, rippling, motes of information and energy twisting around each other to form something almost real. For a second Naruto stood amazed, this is what a seal felt like. He had always visualized seals as strokes of ink or lines of instructions, but this seemed strange and alive. His mind began to start piecing the knots of the weave together and slowly the fabric began to unravel in his mind. Some of the knots loosened up and became the field generation methods, another line of twisted strings of chakra revealed themselves to be the anchor point management routines. There was more than just the methods and instructions that Naruto had written. The threads of information and light felt like the came in a hundred different colors. From colors that felt like iron to colors that smelled like air, Naruto realized that the threads of the seals fabric had been died in his intent when he wrote and activated the seal.

Naruto expected that, had he not just written this seal, figuring out the seal's construction would have been significantly more difficult; if he hadn't written it at all? Naruto wasn't sure if he could have figured out anything. Suddenly Naruto had a much deeper understanding of what it meant to make a seal. Seal crafting was actually a work of art, weaving all these threads into a beautiful practical fabric of circuits to influence the world around it.

"Any luck?"

"Quiet, I'm concentrating."

"Okay, whatever."

Naruto began to mumble to himself, thinking aloud. "A seal is constructed from content and intent. A strong seal is built from accurate and precise instruction pared with clear and unquestionable desire. The more closely the content and the intent of a seal are aligned the more limited a seals use is, but the harder it is to break. General content and vague intent can create a versatile, but flimsy seal. When content and intent clash..." Naruto faltered as he began to become aware of ugly tangles and knots with in the fabric of the weave. "Incongruencies and weaknesses form that can be exploited."

Okay, so apparently that was easier said than done. The ugly tangles - one of which had to be the screwed up exception parameters and permeation methods - seemed all to be tied together; tugging on the threads of one knot to loosen it pulled all the other incongruencies and threatened to tangle the other good parts of the seal.

"Okay... this is going to be fun."

Sasuke had no idea what was going on. This was actually a fairly common state of existence for him when Naruto was around. Actually is seemed kind of like a default for everybody when Naruto was around. Sasuke really didn't know how to handle the guy. Sometimes, like now, he seemed incredibly serious. Sure, he looked a little silly just standing there holding his hand out, but the expression on his face was anything but silly. The rest of the time, however, he was just an annoying goofball.

Sasuke was distracted from his musings about the only person he ever gave any thought to - except *him* - by the feeling of some... thing behind him. Carefully he turned his head, trying to catch whoever it was in the periphery of his vision. Unfortunately there was nothing but darkness behind him. The slight magnetic pull had shifted somewhere else. He thought he had it, but suddenly it disappeared. Sasuke was still having a bit of trouble with chakra sensing. It kind of varied on the person, Naruto he could sense from forever away, Sakura had to be pretty close, Kakashi-sensei? He had yet to actually sense him. Maybe he was just imagining things.

"Ya done yet?"

"Almost, I think I might be able to repair the seal without completely breaking it. Give me a second here."

"Just break it."

"No, no, I can do this!"

There it was again. Sasuke tried to catch a hold of the feeling, but it quickly disappeared. Sasuke focussed on the space behind him, trying to hear if anything was moving. Blocking out Naruto's constant muttering he slowly became aware of the steady drip drip of water falling through the cave. Occasionally there was a loud plop or a quiet crack; he had no idea what caused them.

Something like fear was starting to rise up from Sasuke's gut. It wasn't fear, just something like it - he was never afraid, never - but he was getting mildly creeped out. They were just stuck in a dark cave... where they had already been attacked once... that was rumored to have a demon living inside of it... and there was definitely something behind him now! Sasuke gave up any subtlety and spun around, kunai jumping to his hand.

Nothing.

Darkness.

Drips.

And more nothing.

"Naruto, can you hurry it up."

"Ten seconds." Sasuke heard something hiss behind him - probably something to do with the seal, and then Naruto nearly scared the crap out of him by shouting, "Success. Okay, try coming in now."

Sasuke easily stepped backwards over the invisible line that had kept him at bay for several hours.

"Hey, come on, " Naruto started walking back, "there are still some leftovers from dinner that you can have."

Sasuke gladly followed his teammate back to camp. He would never admit it to Naruto, but he was actually glad that Naruto's barrier was still up around him. He could verify that it worked and it made him feel kinda... safe.

Not that he would ever admit that to Naruto.

Neither of the boys noticed the white mask of an ANBU hiding in a knick in the wall eating a tasteless ration bar.

0o0o0o0o0oo0

She crawled through the darkness. She was full for now. She licked the back of her hand, remembering all the different flavors of blood from her meal. So much blood, so much meat. Her stomach seemed to pull her toward the ground. Her eyes were growing heavy, so heavy.

She would not make it back. After catching and eating such a large meal she wanted to find a clean puddle and sleep. There was still blood in the air. Fresh blood. Living blood. Strange blood.

But it could wait.

They could wait.

Now she needed to nap. Now she needed to rest.

So tired. So sleepy.

Splash.

This puddle felt so good. Just a little rest, she thought, and climbed into the water. It wasn't as clean as she wanted, but right now she didn't care.

She was full. She was happy.

In the darkness the puddle colored pink from the blood still on the small girls skin. Slowly the blackness of the cave filtered in and became the blackness of her mind and she drifted to sleep; where she could dream empty dreams of darkness. In her sleep the girl wondered on paths from nowhere and to nowhere.

In her sleep she writhed and twisted, splashing the water and throwing up clouds of fine silt in the water. The water became cloudy and dirty and pink.

She was cold. She was empty. She was afraid.

Until she woke again. Then the smell of living blood, oh so tasty, caught her nose. It made her hungry once more.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Ug," Naruto complained as he pulled himself out of his tent, "This is weird."

"What's weird, dweeb? Aside from you?" Sasuke answered back from where he sat backing his tent into its unbelievably small pouch. Funny how someone had actually spent the time to figure out how to make the tent fold up into a short by much too short square so it could be easily carried, it was so much easier just to stick it in a seal.

Like this one! Naruto puffed away his tent into the _Seal of the Road: Vagabond's Hut_ and turned back to his teammate. "You know, waking up and it still being pitch black outside your tent. No moon, no stars, no hint of dawn. I don't know, I just find it kind of strange, don't you."

The Uchiha shrugged and jabbed at another fold of fabric in an attempt to get it to cooperate.

Sleeping in caves was a bit strange. Without the celestial cycles to reorient Naruto, there was this sense that time had somehow shifted. Conceptually Naruto knew that his circadian rhythm wouldn't start shifting too drastically unless he stayed a couple more days underground, but still without the natural clock to tie time down, it seemed more fluid.

Well, that and the nobles were just so excruciatingly slow that time seemed to drag on forever. Gawd, couldn't they move any faster. Naruto heard a loud mountainous snore come from Tobomaru's tent. He was still asleep? Naruto couldn't believe it. His body was just itching to get moving and they were still sleeping? For all that was good with Ramen, how could they just lie there half the day?

Naruto paused to think about this. He had never really had anything to compare his lifestyle with, but now that he thought about it, it probably would seem rather strange to a civilian. Heck, even other ninja's might think it a bit odd. He was usually awake at five thirty to train - something not especially unique to him. He trained for usually about two and a half to three hours with the terrifying green freaks, had breakfast, met his teacher - or team now that he was a full genin - worked until lunch, trained after lunch, studies, tested, ate, trained, studied... he usually wasn't in bed until about three in the morning. Naruto had always kind of assumed that was normal. Hon had managed to do something fairly similar, usually with an afternoon nap and the aid of coffee and tea... Sakura, Sasuke, they had both started nodding off way before Naruto these past couple of nights.

Maybe he just had more energy than everybody else. Why was that?

Oh.

Well, Naruto could think of one plausible reason.

Naruto suddenly nipped that line of thought in the bud. He did not want to think about his tenant on this mission. Here he was just an ordinary ninja. Plus, if he started acting weird, his teammates might notice. Naruto didn't want them knowing. He didn't want anyone knowing, if he could help it.

Anyway. He had things to do right now: like dismantling the barrier seal that he had put up last night. Obviously leaving it here wouldn't work. Yeah sure, they would _probably_ be able to get out of the barrier zone, but a trade route that dead ended in an invisible wall was really kind of worthless. If Naruto's seal shut down the Dark Trail Tunnel permanently... well he was definitely going to have some form of retribution enacted upon him.

Having broken the seal once already, and then repaired it, removing the barrier seal was actually fantastically easy. By the time he had retrieved the four seal anchors the clients had woken up. Already Lord Izo and Tobomaru were swearing up a storm. They complained that it was dark. They complained that it was early. They complained that their backs hurt.

At least Jaki wasn't complaining.

Naruto liked Jaki even more now.

Naruto reapplied his proximity seal to his wrist and made quick recheck of the surrounding area. Yep, everything still seemed in order. Over the past day Naruto had noticed that the seal tended to fluctuate a little bit. Sometimes it was above the actual number, sometimes it was slightly below. It was probably something in the detection methods that was causing the noise. Naruto made a mental note to look into that once he had more time. For an early attempt, he thought it was actually pretty good.

Naruto was just about to pull out the scroll he had written the proximity seal on when the group was finally ready to leave. The nobles were SOOO slow. Cock-eye-sensei had gone over the days formation almost an hour ago, and Naruto was getting antsy. He wanted to start doing something. Waiting was so boring!

He'd be taking the rear for the morning shift - or at least what passed as a morning shift in a cave with no sunlight. Sasuke was up at the front of the formation while Kakashi and Sakura would be trading off protecting the flanks. Not that they really expected anything this deep in the cave. Yeah, sure, there had been that one ambush earlier in the trip... but that was just kind of obvious. Bandits wouldn't be able to really keep a stable operation this deep in the cave - not without a lot of overhead. On the whole bandits and even most of the yakuza operated on a fairly low commitment standard. Having an ambush almost perpetually in place in the middle of a dark dank cave? Yeah that didn't sound like fun, even for a dedicated ninja - bandits would have no desire to set up anything like that.

So pretty much today was just some practical application of things they had learned over the months in training.

Oh and rationing their lights.

You know, a seal that just emitted light should have been an easier thing to make. Heck, it should have been an obvious thing to take on the trip. Yep, you'd think that Naruto would have remembered to bring along a light. Yet, going through his pack Naruto realized that he had used up his last standard issue flair-stick yesterday. Dang.

Needless to say, Naruto was not pleased about getting this sizable demaret and getting put in the front of the pack for losing the bet. He liked his orange!

Naruto shivered violently. He couldn't tell if it came from the idea of losing his favorite color permanently from his wardrobe or the strange icy feeling that had brushed against his core.

That was not normal. However the strange sensation disappeared almost as soon as Naruto noticed it. He knew he had felt something, and that it was cold, but the amount of time he had consciously been aware of it was so short that he had no idea what it actually felt like, much less what might have caused it.

Though if he had to bet on something, it would more than likely be Lord Annoying starting up his rant again.

"And one more thing: The Fire Lord is letting the Goyon Providence get away with far too much, he will regret it someday. And one more thing, Ninja-san, isn't it frustrating that bid for the chunin exams had to go so poorly for this year, late fall is a bad time for it if you ask me. And one more thing: it gets far too cold to sit out and watch the fights. And one more thing: are these children going to be entering. I hope not. And one more thing: Ninja should not be so young. And one more thing: why do they not teach more practical things to you in school. And one more thing..."

That was definitely a possibility. The man's voice was enough to send someone off the deep end if they listened for too long. And then there was that annoying way that it echoed loudly off the stone walls around them. It almost seemed like he was all around you. Kakashi-sensei had tried to get him to be quieter, but it didn't work. So here they were telegraphing to probably the whole cave, with their luck, their presence. Again, not that they expected anything, but the habits that had been ingrained in Naruto were screaming that now was a quiet time. Now was a time for sneaking, for silence, for shutting-

Hang on, there it was again.

And he lost it.

Okay, this was getting weird.

Ice grabbed Naruto. His blood ran cold like someone had replaced his stomach with a ball of snow. This time, since he was watching for it Naruto was actually able to remember what the feeling was like before it passed. It was awful, like something in his body was all sorts of wrong. The sensation, even though it was gone had left little flakes of frost floating around inside Naruto.

Once was chance; twice was coincidence, thrice was conspiracy.

Naruto pulled out a kunai. Unconsciously chakra began to flow into the blade just like it had been trained to do.

There was something here.

Naruto tried to block out Lord Izo and listen for whatever it was that was stalking them. Now was the time that having an incredibly accurate proximity sensor would have been helpful. Nothing. Lord Izo, their footsteps, and nothing.

Here the walls were rougher than they had been above. The rock here hadn't been cut by a millennia of slow acidic drips but the rushing coursing torrent of water. Flows and eddies had cut alcoves and ravines in the walls. The roaring waters had torn chunks of stone away and force them into smaller cracks.

In this state of high alert the walls began to close in. Flickering shadows became monsters reaching out for...

"papht."

It was the sound of something - someone - light and shoeless rubbing against stone. Naruto had no idea how he caught it, not over Izo's continuous rant.

Seconds later the cart that Jaki was pulling tipped over. The iron lantern that had been hung from it clattered to the ground and oil snuffed the flame. Suddenly everything was very dim indeed.

The icy feeling returned to Naruto's blood. The thing. It was here.

Naruto didn't know how he knew that, but it was clear. The ice in his blood was screaming "somethings here! somethings here!" His body felt wrong. Like everything was off balance. A large glacial mass was quickly forming where his skull met his spine.

There was someone standing up in the gloom. Naruto raised his borrowed flair to illuminate a small girl standing atop the toppled cart. Six, she could have been six, the young girl with dirty, damp matted hair and long grimy fingernails. Cobwebs covered her face. She was pale as the moon and appeared to be little more than skin and bone, except for her incongruously round belly. It was like a skeleton had swallowed a soccer ball.

Her eyes... her eyes... there was not a bit of white to be found anywhere, just grossly abyssal black. It was impossible to tell where she was looking, but Naruto had the distinct feeling she was staring at him hungrily.

"D- D- Demon!" Tobomaru screamed - in a pitch far too high to fit logically with his size - and broke the trance.

The demon, for what else could it be, smiled. That was when Naruto became very aware of two things - one that her lips and teeth were stained a sickening muddy red, the color of dried blood - and two the cold ugly smell of death and decay that she emitted.

Then she was moving. In a terrifying fluid, mind bending way that nobody should be able to move - she jumped from the cart and landed next to Jaki, who was trying to extricate himself from the overturned cart.

Naruto wasn't aware of much more than pale hands and blood stained fingers reaching for Jaki's neck, but somehow the kunai in his hand was now flying through the air toward the girl. Danger! Target! Death! Flashes of fear and memories shot through Naruto's brain. Not again! No! No! Not again!

The blade barely nicked the girl's bare shoulder, but that was enough to destabilize the chakra that Naruto had been unconsciously feeding into the blade. A hazy blue shock wave exploded out from the blade ruffling Jaki's hair, but having significantly more effect on the demon. She hissed and howled like a wild animal and jumped away from the body.

By this time Sasuke had made it back from the front of the formation. (Had it all really happened that quickly, Naruto paused to wonder) Sasuke tried to deliver a swift blow the nick of the girl, but she dodged in her strange style-of-movement-that-shouldn't-be-physiologically-possible and disappeared back into the shadows of the cave.

"What's going on? What was that?" Asked Sakura who had been apparently petrified with fear.

"The- the demon!" Tobomaru whispered. The large man seemed to be curling in upon himself.

"Defensive formation!" Kakashi-sensei snapped them all back to reality, "Keep the clients safe at all cost."

Naruto caught a glimpse of Kakashi's face as he jumped into one of their practiced formations. He looked mildly worried. However, he didn't have time to think about that now. They were in a defensive ring facing a hidden enemy, an enemy who knew this place better than they and could move in an unpredictable way.

Naruto tried to think logically about this. If he were a demon how would he attack. Find the weakest point, obviously. That would probably be Sakura... or maybe himself. But the demon wouldn't know that. The demon would only know that there were people, with pointy things. No, the safest route to attack would be...

"Above!" Sasuke shouted, coming to the same conclusion a second before Naruto.

Sure enough, if but for Kakashi-sensei's quick action the six year old demon girl would have landed on Lord Annoying, probably killing him before anyone could have gotten her off. As it was Kakashi's shoulder plowed into the demon mid-air knocking her away.

In the gloom, Naruto saw the girl raise her self up. Oh God! It took a second but Naruto realize that the girl hadn't just pulled herself to all-fours, she had bent her arms around backwards so that she was facing them upside down.

Sakura tried to take advantage of the targets apparent miss placement, only to come foot to gut with the six year olds far too powerful kick. The wind was at least knocked out of the young shinobi, but even worse the demon girl was starting to latch on. Winding its arms and legs around Sakura, it began to squeeze and pull.

Again it was Kakashi to the rescue as he tore the demon away from his student and threw it deep into the dark cave. Kakashi turned to them and comanded, "Go run! Take the clients and get out of here! I'll try to hold it off!"

Naruto caught his sensei's face full this time. The konoha protector was up and he could see that while there was a deep ugly scar cutting through the left half of his teachers face, there at least was a strange crimson eye in the socket. More disturbing though was the look of death on the Jonin's face.

Naruto didn't want to run. He didn't want to leave Kakashi here. He didn't want to!

But he was afraid.

And when it came down to it, he would only be a burden again.

So he turned, he pulled Jaki up from the ground. He started pushing Tobomaru faster than the fat man had ever gone in his life. But mostly he ran.

They ran.

They left behind their sensei and leader and fled.

It was cowardly. It was selfish.

.

It was pointless.

Naruto felt the cold creeping up inside of him again. That thing was coming. He could run faster, but the nobles...

They would die, first. He knew it. The thing had been reaching for Jaki to kill him. Naruto didn't know why the thing was trying to kill them, but he knew that it was. And ryo to ramen it had something to do with blood stained teeth.

This wasn't fear any more. This was terror. Pure, hard, cold gray terror. When he had been kidnapped confusion had been enough to distract him from this feeling, but here, now, he could see it coming. He had seen the danger and recognized it... and he knew it was coming after them.

That was where the difference was: in the knowing.

Suddenly she was there, hanging onto a wall with her fingers and toes, looking down on them as they ran toward her. How she got ahead of them, Naruto had no idea.

Sasuke moved to engage. Naruto placed himself just behind where he expected the demon and Sasuke to meet. But they were both wrong. The girl folded. Her forehead touched her heels and she sprung in a new direction that neither the ninja predicted.

Sakura!

Naruto's teammate was frozen in fear as the demon possessed girl arched toward her. At least she had a kunai pointed out in front of her, but if she didn't move...!

At the very last second the incoming danger must have registered because Sakura shifted her weight to meet the oncoming threat. She lashed out with the blade; and had it been Naruto or perhaps even Sasuke there might have been a deep wound in their gut. But it wasn't a genin that was on the business end of the knife, it was a demon possessed six year old girl who could move in ways that bodies shouldn't move - and apparently not feel pain either.

The girls hand was pretty much split in half by Sakura's blade. A fissure ran from in between her middle and ring finger down to her wrist and yet, the demon-girl curled her fingers around the knife and wrenched it from Sakura's hand. Apparently that was too much for Sakura. The girl reached her cognitive limit and fainted to the ground. All in all a bad position to be in when the enemy is standing right above you.

Sakura was going to die. In his mind's eye Naruto could already see the pale, but now bloody, hands twisting of his teammates head. Ideas - ones that Naruto never would have thought he could think - began to flood into his head. Dark thoughts about what the demon would do to bodies.

No.

He could not, WOULD NOT, let that happen.

Ignoring the sudden warmth rushing around his skin Naruto rushed forward. A kunai seemed to jump into his hand from his leg brace. Now was as good as any.

He threw it, and this time the explosion of chakra was much brighter. Blindingly bright in the dim of the cave the shockwave of malformed chakra knocked everyone around. The demon by far got the worst of it, being the closest to the blast and flung the farthest.

It was howling furious now. Naruto didn't have time to react before the small creature was on him. He was knocked back into another body by the force of the child's blow. Before he could figure out who it was that he had been thrown into he felt the small, thin, slick fingers wrap around his wrist.

And he was flying.

And so was a body next to him.

Through the dim air toward a dark crack in the wall. Oh, this was going to hurt, being flung head first into a small alcove and crushed by another body into the stone...

But there was no stone in the shadows...

Only more air.

Darkness, and the whistle of chilly air rushing past his ears.

And they were falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Just when it seemed like he would fall forever, he became acquainted with a hard flat object that kept him from falling any further. Naruto decided to call it the ground for simplicities sake. Something suddenly met Naruto's back with about the same amount of force he had just met the ground with.

Flooded with pain signals from all directions, Naruto's brain decided that it was time to check out.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Penguin-san the ANBU was bit lost. Oh, no, he knew exactly where he was, he was a capable ninja after all. No, it was more like he was mentally lost. One moment everything had been going just fine. No more bandits - they were dead - Naruto safe, easy mission.

The next moment: hell. No, no, literal hell. Demons and the demon possessed were not on his list of "been there, dealt with that." In fact, he had kind of assumed at this point that - subtracting the bijuu - demons were just a folk tale. Well, apparently not.

He had stayed behind and watched Kakashi when the kids had fled. It was kind of strange to see one of the villages most respected ninja out maneuvered by a six year old girl. She moved fast, and even more terrifying was the fact that he couldn't feel any chakra radiating from the girl.

The girl sunk into a dark hole in the wall and after a second reappeared twenty feet away. Then she was bolting down the hall, after her prey.

On the one hand his mission was specifically to "interfere as little as possible with the mission of Uzumaki Naruto while keeping him safe from the vendetta of the root council," on the other hand, demon possessed six year old. Technically the demon was part of Naruto's mission and thus fell outside of his jurisdiction. On the other hand: demon possessed six year old. He could potentially invalidate Naruto's mission, which from what the briefing had suggested was very bad. Demon possessed six year old.

Damn, demon possessed six year old was a hell of a convincing argument. Now weather it was a good argument for intervention or for running away, Penguin-san the ANBU wasn't exactly sure. The least he could do was check up on Naruto.

That being decided Penguin-san made his way up after the Demon, just behind Kakashi.

"Sensei!" He heard the pink haired girl call out as he approached. (He had never actually bothered to learn her name, obviously she wasn't important in the least.) Penguin-san ducked into the shadows and carefully approached the battle zone. No sense getting caught in the fight. He had just slipped into on of the recesses in the wall - and nearly fallen of the small ledge that was hidden by the darkness, when he noticed bodies flying through the air toward him.

Crap. There was orange on one of them.

And an old one. Again crap.

Penguin-san's instinct took over and pushed him into the darkness beyond the ledge. To be fair his mask made his dissent a whole lot smoother than Naruto's and the old man's. It was a good twenty meter drop onto hard stone that probably should have killed the old man at least. However, praise be unto the ANBU, they had a guardian penguin who was there at the last last second to fly down and decelerate them enough to survive the plunge into darkness via a complex and mostly useless jutsu.

Suddenly Penguin-san had the feeling that he was just some kind of extended joke turned plot di -

Oh right, saving small ninjas and old men from dangerous falls that should kill them. That's what he was doing right now.

They were fine. Oh, out cold maybe a cracked rib or two, but nothing that they couldn't handle. Okay well maybe that was a problem for the old man. Penguin-san looked at the situation. On the one hand he still needed to uphold his mission and not interfere, however was it really interfere to save the life of the old man? He was supposed to make sure that Naruto was to succeed in the mission. To do which he would need to find his way back through unmapped tunnels that stretched farther than anyone imagined, carrying an injured and crotchety old man, find his team, either defeat or escape a demon possessed six year old... Oh, hell, this kid needed all the help he could get.

The very least he could do was keep the old man on his feet.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Pain.

Lot's of pain.

Naruto's brain registered the pain emanating from his rib cage and about decided that what it really wanted was another five minutes of deep deep sleep. Unfortunately his body issued a veto on that and countered with a demand to remove the thing that was crushing him and preventing him from breathing. Naruto's brain begrudgingly complied and issued a request to his eyes to ascertain what it was ontop of him.

Naruto's brain issued a request to his eyes to ascertain what was ontop of him.

Naruto's brain issued a command to open his eyes; only to receive confirmation that they were infact open. There was just no light down here.

No light... hmmm that was a problem, Naruto thought as higher function of his brain began to return to him. In fact total darkness was a very bad thing indeed. Especially considering...

Considering what? Oh yeah, that there was a demon possessed girl trying to kill them all. Oh crap!

Naruto bolted upright, knocking aside the fleshy thing - probably a body - from atop him and looked around. Everything was dark. Part of Naruto's brain asked him what exactly he expected.

Well Naruto had been hoping things weren't as bad as he feared. Unfortunately they were, and worse because if that high pitched raspy groan wasn't Lord Annoying Naruto would eat his shirt.

"Owwww. And one more thing: I am hurt. And one more thing: you have failed. And one more thing..."

Naruto tuned the man out, he needed to think right now. Think what was the situation

"And one more thing: where are we? And one more thing: I can not see anything. And one more thing: where is that thing that threw me. And one more thing: where is everybody else."

The others! For a brief moment Naruto's hopes jumped as he checked his proximity sensor, only to be dashed as it showed that no one else was around them for quite aways. This was okay... all he needed to do was retrace his steps... oh. Naruto looked up (or at least the direction he believed to be up, his directions were getting messed up in the darkness already) retracing straight up would probably be a problem.

"And one more thing: why do you not have a light."

And then there was that, he didn't have anymore lights so he had no idea of his surroundings, other than there was flat ground for about five feet around him.

Hey, wait, maybe he could write a seal! There had to be some kind of seal for this situation. He had applied seal markers to Sasuke and Sakura. Naruto began looking around in the darkness for the storage seal where he had stored his seal making supplies.

Except he couldn't find it.

"And one more thing: I can still see nothing. And one more thing: you are worthless! And one more thing: we are going to die here!"

Naruto swallowed back the rising fear and distress. He was a ninja, he needed to remain calm. First things first. He needed light. That was the first thing that he needed. How could they get light? He could start a fire! Hey, he had a seal for that!

A seal that he could not find in the darkness, plus he didn't have anything to light. His pack had been shed in the flight from the demon and with it most his accessible supplies.

Okay, well he could just start going through his seals in order! But even still there was no way to differentiate one seal from another in the darkness, and it could be dangerous grabbing potentially sharp or deadly things without knowing what they were. Another dead end.

"And one more thing: we should have hired more competent guards. And one more thing I never should have let Tobo accept you kids. And one more thing we should have taken the hill roads. And one more thing: this is my fault. And one more thing: this is actually your fault!"

Focus. Light. Then direction. Seals were worthless without light. Well they were still useful, but he had no way of telling-

"And one more thing: I will haunt you. And one more thing: you are useless-"

Light. Come on, think Naruto think. No. Ignore him. Night vision! No, how would he get that? That wouldn't even work. Smell! He could sniff his way out of here! Yeah, like that was going to work. It smelled dank and wet and cold and dark. Fantastic.

"And one more-"

Light. Out. Guess. Run. Hope. Move. Fight. Flight. Kill the annoying man.

"And one -"

"SHUT UP, CAN'T YOU SEE I KNOW THAT! I KNOW WE'RE FUCKED! I KNOW THAT I FAILED AND THAT THIS IS MY FAULT AND THAT WE'RE GOING TO DIE AND THAT THERE IS NOTHING THAT I CAN DO TO FIX THIS SITUATION! I DON'T NEED YOU REMINDING ME EVERY SECOND! WOULD YOU JUST SHUT UP! I KNOW. AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Naruto screamed into the darkness. Panting, his thoughts stopped in the silence. Images were flashing through his head. They seemed blurry and indistinct except for the blood in them. He knew they were images of Hon and Ikura. They were reminding him of his failure.

He was a failure.

He had failed.

And now he, and his client were going to die alone in the darkness of a cave. He had failed as a ninja, as a student, as a...

Naruto couldn't help it. Tears started leaking out of his eyes, he tried his best to keep the sobs bottled up. The crushing weight of everything knocked him to his knees and stole away his breath.

"And one more thing:" Naruto felt a frail hand on his shoulder, "I am sorry."

Naruto sniffed but didn't respond otherwise.

In. He tried to tell himself over the roaring emotions in his mind. In, out.

In.

Out.

It was difficult to fight against the quick shallow breaths that his body wanted to take. He felt like he was overheating and that the darkness was trying to strangle him.

He was a failure.

In. Out.

Breathe right, dang it! Naruto told himself fighting to put the panic back into its place. He could hear his heart beating in his ears: tha-thump tha-thump.

In. Out.

In.

Out.

Finally, as his breathing began to return to normal and the constricting hand let go of his throat, he looked into the darkness; "No, you were right," he said, "everything you said is true. I am useless. We are going to die. It is my fault."

For a while the old man didn't say anything, but he at he left his hand on Naruto's shoulder.

"Just one thing: you are Ninja, and one more thing: ninja can do impossible things." He paused for a minute and the darkness seemed to echo back the words, "And one more thing: this is not your fault."

Naruto didn't know what to think. His emotions were all mixed up and he felt very tired. His chest hurt and his eyes were doing funny thing in the darkness and his heart was still smashing away at his eardrums. Naruto still felt like he was on some kind of high cliff, teetering on the edge about to drop back into the panic of before. His muscles were twitching. Any second now that crushing wave could come back.

Naruto pulled out a kunai and began his glowing kunai exercise. Breathe out, let chakra flow into the blade. Breathe in: pull the chakra out of the blade. Control the chakra. Focus on the chakra. If Naruto had been back home he would have tried to find a way into the Aburame's bug sorting room to get away from everything. He just needed to get away from it all right now. This was close enough. He could just focus on this and forget about the darkness and his failure.

In. Out.

Push as much chakra into the blade as it could hold. Fill it up to the very brim and just before it began to overflow, pull it back in.

Naruto never learned how to meditate; but he imagined it was something like this.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

She would kill them.

She would kill them slowly and then feast upon their flesh. Those nasty things with blue fire and sharp thorns would die soon. Rip, twist, tare, wrench, kill them slowly, make them scream, break them apart at every seam.

She nursed her hand, trying to hold the two halves together.

The tall one with the strange face had come back just after she flung the orange-one-who-threw-blue-fire into the darkness. She had meant to go back for him when they fell out of the tunnel. Kill him then, but the tall one attacked with lightning.

Carefully she twisted around in the darkness. Her shoulder tingled as the darkness tried to fix her. Darkness whispered angry words. Darkness shouted quiet threats.

She wanted blood. She wanted their blood. Darkness cried out for it. Darkness needed it.

When the darkness was finished with her she would find them again. They would never find their way out now. Not after she what she had done.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

When Sakura woke up she had no idea where she was . She didn't even remember why she had been asleep. The last thing was...

Oh Gawd! What happened. That thing, that little girl had come out of nowhere! It had tried to attack them, and then it rushed at her and... Oh, the blood, and it's smile. She bolted upright and flung her eyes open.

"Hey, calm down." Sasuke pushed her back to the ground gently. He looked like he had been sitting next to her for a while. He had a kunai out as seemed to be gripping it pretty hard.

"Wha- what happened?" She managed to eek out.

"You fainted." He responded and looked into the darkness. Kakashi and the two of their clients were standing next to a small bright fire aways away. Sakura pushed herself up again and leaned against the cavern wall. "We'll duh, but what happened after that?" She asked.

Sasuke didn't look at her and stayed silent. Brooding as usual.

"Hey, Sasuke, tell me what happened. Come on!" But Sasuke remained speechless and continued to stare out into the darkness. He didn't even respond with his classic "hn." He was quiet, Sakura knew, but not usually this quiet. It was hardly ever this quiet actually. Weather it was Sakura's mom chattering away with her friends at home, or Ino... being Ino, or Naruto being Naruto, or Lord Annoying doing his thing there was some noise going on around here. Now? Nothing. It was silent as a grave.

Everyone must be just as shaken up by the attack as she was. She looked closer at Sasuke in the gloom. This definitely wasn't his normal kind of brooding, she realized on closer inspection. Normally he had this empty but determined mask to disguise his complex and throbbing thoughts - or at least that's what she assumed was going on underneath the mask - but this time... Well, his eyebrows weren't at the right angle and his eyes were open wider than normal.

What happened? Why was everyone this quiet? Why did Sasuke look scared? Oh, come on! Where was Naruto with his stupid scroll or joke or what not?

Come to think of it where was Naruto?

She looked around again. Kakashi, Jaki, and Tobomaru-san were over by the fire next a giant pile of stones and she and Sasuke were hiding next to the smooth wall of the cave. Her eye traced the wall around and realized that they were in some kind of chamber, almost like a smaller version of the giant crystal palace they had passed through yesterday. The only door looked to be a deep back fissure in the far wall. There may have been more to this room, but it seemed to have been covered in a cave-in. She checked again, but she still didn't see the third member of their genin team - or the annoying client for that matter either.

Something caught in her throat and her eyes darted back to the rubble. "Sasuke, where is Naruto?"

He didn't answer.

"Sasuke, where is Naruto?"

Still he did not answer.

For a second the boys face flashed in front of her eyes. No.

"Sasuke, where is he?" She pleaded reaching out for her teammate who drew away.

He pulled up his legs and rested his chin on his knee, "We don't know."

Sakura's breath caught. She had fear that was the answer; no, she had known that was the answer. But she didn't want to think about it. He would be okay, they would find him, right? Right?

He couldn't have gotten too far. They just needed to retrace their steps and look for him.

And then another question struck her: "Sasuke, where are we?"

"We don't know."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Crazy: Guess who's back? Back again.

Deadpan: And no one's dead. How exciting. I could just jump for joy. Yeah.

Onix: Jeez, you don't have to be so excited. And what do you mean no ones dead, I had carnage out the wazoo!

Deadpan: Yeah, but those were all completely unnamed characters. They existed just to die! But it's been forever since you updated. I thought maybe you were dead.

Onix: Aww, you really do care!

Deadpan: Nope: I was happy. It meant no one had to be exposed further to this imaginary train wreck.

Onix: Well, we have entered a zone of increased Gauna activity, so I'll be updating a little more frequently, I hope.

Deadpan: iHope, is that the latest gimmick from Apple? Is it supposed to made you feel cool and hip. Can you sit in over priced coffee shops and look like the stereotyped counter cultural college student with it?

Onix: I don't remember you being so passive aggressive.

Deadpan: That's what happens when you leave and don't come home!

Onix: Sarcastic and apparently riddled with abandonment issues aside... I hope the chapter was enjoyed by all. And if it wasn't please tell me why. If it was, tell me about that too. Feedback is really nice to have, just say'n. Catch you all later!


	11. Chapter 11

The bead of sweat hung on the tip of Naruto's nose. A quick breath could fling it off into the darkness, but there it remained growing larger and larger as more moisture rolled from Naruto's forehead down to join it. Finally it grew too large to hold on to its precarious position and fell. It dropped through the darkness until it landed on cloth where it was eaten.

Naruto's clothes were starting to stick and crease from lack of movement. Only the rise and fall of his chest served to give any indication that the boy was still alive. In out. In out. The quiet rasp of air sailing into the boys nostrils and out again proved to be the only sound, excepting of course the whistling breaths of Lord Izo. The older man lay curled up in the darkness next to the only discovered wall about a meter away from the boy.

In. Out.

Chakra, hot and cold flowed from Naruto's core down through his arm, where it raised goosebumps, before it slid into the kunai in his hand. The handle was warm in his hand now, radiating back the heat it had stolen from the boy into his skin so that it seemed to be alive itself.

In. Out.

The breaths were long and regular and deep. For several seconds the air would rush in. A long pause. And then it would slowly slip out. Another pause and the process would repeat itself all over again.

How long had it gone on like this? Time in the darkness was hard to measure. With face of neither sun nor clock and only the long steady breaths of a single boy and the snores of an old man to mark the passing of moments, it could have been minutes, it could have been months.

In. Out.

Somewhere in the darkness a drop of water fell through the air and landed with a soft "plop." The sound was magnified and carried by the darkness over the indefinite space to the ears of Uzumaki Naruto. He open his eyes, and then closed them, and then opened them again. It didn't matter anyway.

The brain does funny things when the eyes are open and there is nothing to see. It keeps trying to open the eyes. It keeps trying to wake up. Darkness is significantly more real when it exists beyond one's eyelids. On the insides of eyelids brains can paint swirling shifting phantasm to fool itself and keep the dark at bay, but when eyes are open the mind is forced to look out into the bleak empty reality of darkness. Even then it tries desperately to cover the darkness. It paints harder and more vigorously, but the darkness is too huge. All of it's work is lost and the few lines and shadows that it manages to paint only serve to remind the mind of the massive unthinkable size of darkness.

In. Out.

Naruto's brain was still trying desperately to overcome the darkness and it seemed to have found a rut. There was this place, either in his eyes or in the darkness where the phantasmagorical blue paint that his mind supplied seemed to stick and remain for a hair of a second longer. So over and over it his mind went painting this sideways arc with a ghostly shadow of blue. The ghostly illusion waxed and waned in time to Naruto's deep breathing. Shining brightest - even if that was only the hint of existence - during the pause when Naruto's lungs were full of air and faded from even the hint of possibility when he stopped on empty.

Behind him, or at least that was the direction the sound decided to come at Naruto this time, the old sleeping man gave a snort. The sound bounced around in the darkness and returned from a different direction, and shortly after that another reflection of the sound made its way back after venturing much farther into the cave. Out there, out in the darkness, there were probably more little bits of that snort jumping around, journeying farther out, slowly dying.

Living things, if there were any besides the two of them, might be able to hear it. Things that had evolved to live in this darkness. Things whose ears had replaced their eyes and generations of darkness had made them forget even the concept of light or color or blue.

Their brain's probably didn't throw tantalizing illusions of the ceiling in front of their eyes. They went all their lives without their brains feeding themselves false visions in a vain attempt to stave off madness from sensory starvation.

Naruto let his gaze drop to the floor of the darkness.

In the darkness it looked like his kunai was glowing.

Wait, what?

"Oh, God, damn it." The darkness swallowed Naruto's words and returned them as jarring echoes.

Naruto leapt up and begun to flail his arms about. "Why didn't I think of this earlier. Glowing Kunai!" He jabbed the offending blade into the air. "GLOWING KUNAI! How stupid can I be?"

A gurgle and a snort came from the darkness where Lord Izo slept, and suddenly he woke up. Probably something to do with the raving genin swinging around a very sharp blade. "Shnrkch, huh, what. What? Whas'goin on."

Throughout his lessons, the primary focus of Naruto's attempts at this exercise had been about control. Restricting the flow of power from his core into the blade. Control, regulate, balance, making the whole process seamless and thoughtless. Not this time. Naruto flung open the floodgates and laughed. Power, more than necessary perhaps, rushed out of his core. Up out his chest where for a moment it seemed to get stuck in his throat - suggesting a scream, a roar, a shout - before Naruto shoved it down his right arm, through his hand, and into the blade. It needed to be big, it needed to be bright, it needed...

And then light. Maybe not bright enough to be helpful, but it was light. Strange ghostly blue light shining in a thin halo around the blade. It flickered and sputtered, the darker and lighter portions were much more pronounced when there was this much chakra flowing through the blade.

"I give you light."

Naruto thrust the blade up to drive back the dark. It didn't retreat very fast or very far, but the darkness stepped back. It was a victory.

"One more thing: where are we. And one more thing: how do we find Tobo. And one more thing: why did you not do this earlier?"

Naruto turned his gaze from the glowing blade above his head toward the crusty old man, "You really know how to kill the mood don't you."

"And one more thing: don't be so childish."

Naruto stared at the old man. The eerie blue light from the kunai threw the man's deep wrinkles into stark relief, so that they almost looked like fingers from some hellish black creature reaching around and grabbing the old man. His eyes glinted in the darkness that filled the deep hollows in which they were set. The mans wiry white hair and beard looked as if they had been stained blue in the light.

"Yeah yeah, but at least now I can see. That's the first step. Maybe I can work up some kind of tracking seal to find the others. Hold your horses you old coot, one thing at a time."

"And one more thing: show some respect to your elders."

"Oh yeah," Naruto whirled around and brandish the glowing blade at the old man, "one more thing: be nicer to the person who's going to get you out of this mess. If you think, I'm going to let this little thing stop me? Ohhh, no. You have got another think coming. But right now I am tired of your incessant complaining - and your snoring too. Cus when you're not doing one, it's because you're so far engaged in the other, you can't bring yourself to stop. My patience has finally been eroded down to this. So you sit down, shut up, and let a future Hokage do his work. Because there is no force conceived of in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth, or in any dimension known or unknown to man that will keep me from finishing this mission. Believe it!"

Naruto transferred the blade from his right hand to his left. However just as began he to run his fingers along the hem of his _Thieves Sleeves _the light coming from the blade decreased immensely.

"This, however, might slow me down."

Lord Izo snorted.

Naruto shifted the blade back into his right hand and began to feed more chakra into it. Immediately the intensity of light increased, and then dropped, and then grew again. The light sputtered and jumped, randomly shining blindingly bright for a second, and then fading out again. Naruto pinched his lips and waited. A light that flickered like this was hardly useful as a reading lamp.

Bright. Dark. Bright. Dark. Oh for the love of...

There are many great problem solving strategies in the world. Naruto knew a lot of them. One of his go to methods was "sit there and debug for two and a half hours to find a missing dot," another was "bang head against wall until inspiration comes." Hon-san ardently subscribed to the "go find a book about it" methodology of problem solving. If Kakashi-sensei had to be categorized he would probably fit in the "ignore it and it will go away" philosophy. But right now, Naruto's only tool was a hammer.

Metaphorically of course.

As the amount of chakra Naruto pushed through the blade increased the bright flashes became brighter and the dim flashes became... less dim. However as for decreasing the amount of the annoying flickers... Still all Naruto had was a hammer.

One of the problems that Hon often noted in his theoretical discussions about seal making, particularly anything relating to battle seals, was the difficulty of using chakra. As intuitive as its use is in the human sense, chakra is a nightmare to use mathematically. Humans (and other things that use chakra) just kind of use it. Lots of people put a lot of effort into controlling and manipulating chakra, but they rarely put much thought into its properties or specifics. One huge problem with chakra is it's difficulty to measure. Chakra is nearly impossible to measure quantitatively or qualitatively. Since there are so many different expressions, qualities, and properties of chakra that affect how it will respond in given situations it is literally impossible for there to be any kind of "unit" of chakra - at least of chakra itself. Hon-san managed a work around using an incredibly simple storage seal as a relative standard for all of his seals, but still for each individual person the raw amount needed for a seal to work could vary significantly.

That being said, Naruto tried tripling the size of his hammer.

"Gaaa! Make it stop!" Lord Izo cried turning away from the strobing blade.

For as poor a problem solving method as "get a bigger hammer" was, sometimes it could yield results; in this case the blinking light began to flicker more quickly. Whenever one looked somewhere else an image of the place you had just been looking at before remained burned in your eyes, until after several flashes this new scene was stamped into your retinas.

Odd, seizure inducing light shows weren't the only extra ordinary side effect of turning up the chakra flow. Clots of hot and cold chakra seemed to mingle in with the ordinary life energy that flowed from Naruto's core. Originally he had written them off as figments of his overactive imagination trying to make sense of an incredibly dull exercise. Now...

Naruto hissed as a particularly large bubble of searing hot chakra popped through his skin into the blade. Suddenly icy cold chakra rushed into fill the gap and got sucked in after the clot of burning energy. The blade flashed brighter than it ever had before and then nearly faded out of existence. The light crept back into the blade as the clot of burning chakra worked its way back into Naruto's body, significantly smaller and cooler than it had been a second ago.

Naruto worked to unclench his hand from the handle and tried to blink out the blinding light that remained stuck in his eyes and made the cave seem even darker than it was before.

Still all Naruto had was a hammer.

Naruto threw more chakra into the blade then he had for any clone before, more than in any seal he used (including that one time when he had really botched a simple storage seal and accidently locked away his wallet), more than he had ever put into anything at once before. It wasn't actually an easy feat. Simply unused to letting this amount of chakra pass through, Naruto's chakra system registered its protest to Naruto's brain.

Naruto's brain responded with a kind: "shut up, suck up, and comply." Naruto's chakra circulatory system was mildly miffed at the tert response and briefly considered going on strike for a bit, but decided against it, remembering that Naruto's brain could just pump in more chakra from an all too willing core, regardless of what it did. So bulking up on staff, calling in some temps, and clever reassignments of tasks so that everybody got more work when they were promised less, they managed to pull through. It was a learning experience for everyone.

And sometimes a hammer is all one needs to solve a problem.

There was an odd pop in Naruto's circulatory system. Some unidentifiable thing inside his body had changed. But some how, suddenly, the flickering was gone. There was a steady blue-white glow coming from the blade with just the smallest hint of a chakra halo hovering millimeters from the sharp cutting edge. Miraculously, as Naruto decreased the amount of chakra he was feeding to the blade the glow only slightly diminished.

Naruto shrugged. Shifting it to his off hand didn't change much of anything this time.

And with two successes under his belt Naruto pulled out a brush, a blank scroll, and his reference material for tracking seals and got to work.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Sasuke finally gave up and slumped down against the rock he had been trying to move for the past half an hour. Breathing heavily the boy scowled and let out a frustrated grunt.

The short story was that they were trapped. The long story was that they were trapped somewhere hundreds of feet underground in a cave where they had gotten lost fleeing from a demon possessed girl, they had lost their teammate, and almost gotten buried under a collapsing section of the cave. On a list of highlights of her life, Sakura would not be listing this moment. Despite the fact that normally she would be ecstatic about being trapped alone in a dark place with Sasuke. In all the books she read this was the time when Sasuke, or the other devilishly handsome romantic lead, would break down and let out some heart rending tidbit or fact and the she could console him and their relationship would grow. Eventually everything would be traced back to the moment when she reached out and took his hand, and even though it would be too dark to see (because the lamp would conveniently go out) he would smile. And melting ice... And budding youthful... And...

"Sasuke what are you doing?"

Those were most definitely hand seals that Sasuke was blurring through. The speed at which he moved his fingers, it had to be muscle memory, hand's just didn't move like that on command. Sasuke stood up, whirled around, and put a single curled finger in front of his pursed, pouty lips.

Sakura had been too close to Sasuke when he was using jutsus before and she had come away with minor (accidental) burns, but those had been in wide open practice fields. This was not a wide open practice field. This was a cave. A very dark, relatively small, cave.

Sakura's books also had scenes where the stoic romantic focus opened up while the main character was working to heal them after some battle. However, in order to apply healing salve to the charred flesh of a genin one probably need not-charred flesh themselves. So with less than a second to spare before a stream of fire chakra laced air blasted out of his respiratory system and ignited on the molded chakra in his hand, Sakura began to book it away from the stone wall.

Success could be measured in a lot of different ways. For one, nobody died, that was a success. Well nobody had died yet, so that was a definite plus. Sakura herself had escaped the orange and red fingers of the attack; that too was success. Sasuke had successfully learned from a previous screw up and worn fire retardant clothing; that was a success. The wall of rubble had also succeeded in resisting any change whatsoever; for Sasuke, that was definitely not a success.

Sasuke snarled and flopped down on the ground. Breathing heavily he stared up into the darkness. Sakura cautiously approached and looked down at his splayed arms and legs. They looked fine, there didn't even appear to be any burns at all. But Sasuke wouldn't move at all for a long while. Even his breathing wouldn't calm down. Thankfully he didn't hyperventilate and pass out - though, to be fair, it wouldn't have be much of a change in his condition. Finally though his breathing returned to normal and he rolled over onto his side and appeared to go to sleep. Not that he probably actually got to sleep, the ground was much too hard for that, but at least he looked like it.

Time passed. Call it about an hour, because in the darkness that was a common measurement of time. No one had any idea of knowing how long it really was before Kakashi-sensei, Tobomaru-san, and Jaki returned. Tobomaru, the drunken fatso of their group, had been convinced that it was safer to follow the highly experienced ninja as he looked for an exit than stay with the two genin. From the look on Kakashi-sensei's face, it was kind of obvious the out of shape noble had forgotten the idea of walking and complained about it the whole way.

"Any luck sensei?"

He shrugged, "No not really. But I think I found a side path that might lead us somewhere helpful. Come on, lets pack up and head out."

Sakura quickly scrambled to start picking up their makeshift camp. Sasuke didn't. He fulfilled his duty by grabbing his never-unpacked-bag and walking over to the far end of the room, where he stood sullenly waiting for everyone else. Sakura however helped Jaki pack up all the bottles that had spilled out of the cart in their escape. Thankfully the two wheeled cart could still move, because after seeing how much was actually stored inside the innocuous transport... There were huge heavy pots full of who-knows-what and hundreds of little glass jars full of herbs and other strange colored liquids. Everything looked either heavy or fragile or dangerous.

Apparently, as Jaki explained, Lord Izo was something of an amerature apothicary and natural physician, with some amount of success in his provence. They had actually been in Konoha picking up a large array of rare and potent ingredients as well as paying their respects just before the rumors of a demon in the cave began. They had been staying in Konoha waiting for several other ingredients (and generally enjoying the liberal amount of libations that could be found in a city full of killers and soldiers) but there were finally enough duties at home that demanded Lord Izo and Tobomaru that they couldn't put off their departure any longer. Hence their urgency to return home, even if it meant having the escort of a less-than-desired-team.

The side path that Kakashi had discovered was narrow and twisty, barely wide enough for Jaki's cart to fit through, but the ground had been worn away by feet and hooves and wheels. There was a fine layer of dirt on the floor that explained that yes, people had once moved through here for a time. But there were signs, like the wildlife that scurried around in the light and the long silvery spiderwebs that almost had to be cut down, that suggested that this path had gone out of use a long time ago.

If Naruto were here, he would probably be able to explain the history of this abandoned path. Heck he might even be able to guess where they were. For his blathering annoying speeches and haughty know it all demeanor, Sakura had to admit that there were times when he was usefull. Times. Not often. And they certainly didn't outweigh the problems associated with his presence, but he had his moments.

Plus he actually talked.

Sasuke stalked towards the front of the group. His head perpetually swiveling around like he was searching for something. Sometimes his head would turn far enough that the light that Kakashi was carrying would catch his profile and Sakura would get a glimpse of his stoic, but really cute, scowl. However the adrenaline had left Sakura's system a while ago and even the flickering shadows no longer thrilled her like they had before. It was now just a long dark tunnel that went on forever and ever. And every time Tobomaru complained or moaned there was a god somewhere who was adding another hundred feet just to spite him and everyone around him.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Deeper, deep darkness urged.

Find them. Kill them. Eat them.

He must die.

The one that flings the blue fire that stings so much must die. Him first. The darkness decided after something cold rushed through the cave air and made it shiver.

His blood smelled so good. He would be delicious. He would be tasty.

The darkness was screaming in the silence pushing her forward. Throwing her deeper into the cave.

The darkness was shouting at her, louder than it ever had before. It grabbed her limbs with its claws and dragged her forward. Her joints hurt. The darkness pulled her arm and her shoulder stretched. The darkness yanked her feet and her knees rattled.

She tasted blood in her mouth. It was arsic, salty, disgusting.

It was delicious! It was nothing compared to what that boy would taste like. He would be strong and pungent and sweet.

She would kill him!

She would kill him.

The darkness would kill him.

The darkness screaming louder and louder, shrieking higher and higher. Its words fought to drown themselves out as it drug her body forward.

Nobody noticed the tears in the blackness. She didn't notice it. The darkness didn't notice it.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto waved the glowing blue kunai over the scroll one last time. Everything looked in order at least. The characteristic pattern of this tracking seal looked like several thin breaded treads tracing themselves around blocks of dense characters and instructions connecting action and target. Even the strange weave like pattern that Naruto saw with his newly discovered sense for seals was tight and long, stretching like a rope from the chakra marker on Naruto's pinky into the infinity, where ever that was.

The seal wasn't exactly elegant, and Hon probably had dozens better back home in the library. Naruto had no intention of actually entering this seal in the catalog once he returned home, but it should suffice now. The darkness, despite the retreats that his kunai had forced it to make, still hovered close. Like some great beast hunching over his shoulder watching him work. Or that could have been Lord Izo, but really, same difference.

"One more thing: you have nice brushwork. And one more thing, not many children do. And one more thing: more children should. And one more thing: kids need to learn more important things in school."

"I'm just going to take that as a complement and forget the rest." Naruto finished his inspection of the seal. He stood up and carefully began to roll it up.

"One question." The old geezer said.

"Um, yeah, sure. Shoot." This was probably the first time that Lord Annoying had started off one of his tangents with a question. Naruto might actually get a word in edgewise. Or a word in at all.

"What does it do?" He pointed to the scroll in Naruto's hand.

Naruto grinned. Oh yes. He was going to get a word in, he was going to get a lot of words in. Bwahahahha, now the old chatterbox could suffer. SUFFER!

Wow, what was surprisingly dark and evil. Where did that come from?

Anyway: "It's supposed to help us find the others. It's kind of a cross between a proximity sensor and a tracking seal. Earlier, yesterday morning, I managed to apply a couple of chakra markers to my teammates – though honestly at the time I had no idea what I was going to use them for, actually kind of makes me look paranoid now that I think about it, but its all working out, so let's just say that this was part of some plan – which I referenced as targets in the tracking seal (that I mostly copied from Hon's instructions). So we'll at least know which direction they are. And while that's helpful and all, it's not exactly practical to just know which direction they're in, because there could be thousands of tons of rock in the way. So we probably wouldn't be able to actually find them, plus we wouldn't actually be any closer to finding our way out of here,

"So," Naruto continued, before Izo could get the first syllable out, "I had to think of some kind of solution to those problems. Now the obvious idea would be to make some kind of seal that could just show us how to get to the others. But that would actually be ridiculously difficult because you'd need some kind of pathing algorithm, which would require constant collision checking and that would just take ridiculous amounts of time and energy. So that idea was kind of worthless. Besides humans are usually better at figuring out paths for things anyway – something fundamental about the way we evolved to catch things. Balls, food, animals, you know, doing really complex math in our heads without even thinking about it. Seals can't do that, well they can, but then I would actually have to think about it. And I'm not too great with all that mathy stuff.

"But, what seals are really good at is doing simple mathy stuff really fast. Which I actually exploited in some of my early seals, to create a kind of echo location seal. Echolocation, you know, finding things based on sound? No? Okay, it's actually really simple, I just send out a burst of wind-casted chakra and time how long it takes to reflect off the surfaces and calculate a distance based on that." Naruto paused for a second, "you know, I probably should have brought that seal with me, but don't tell anyone. Anyway, I did something kind of like that. Except for this time I'm also measuring the angle of exit, re-entry, energy-loss, and earth-chakra contamination, which I can use to get a rough map of the cave around us. So I can pick a path, hopefully."

Naruto nodded to himself. In the strange chakra light of the knife in his hand, his teeth glowed in a Cheshire grin against the blackness behind him.

"One more thing: you talk too much."

"Yeah, yeah. I guess I just get a little bit excited when I have a captive audience."

Lord Izo's face fell flat.

"Ehh," Naruto agreed, "Ninjas, nobles, kidnappings... probably bad word choice on my part. Any way!" Naruto spun on his heel to face the darkness. Unrolling the activation point of the seal with a practice flick of his wrist, Naruto began shaping the intent for the seal. _Find my teammates, _he told it, _find a way out. _

"Let us put this to the test!"

Naruto had known how big this cave could be. (Answer really really big) So no wimpy amount of chakra was going to be able to get an adequate map of the place. With this in mind Naruto had written in to the seal a huge chakra storage sub-seal, however, now that he was actually pushing his intent laced chakra into the seal he was beginning to have second thoughts about his design. He had chosen a standard type of storage seal that was easy to use, make, and held chakra rather well, of course it had some drawbacks: like it would only actually release it contents once it was full. Come to think of it, there was probably a very good reason that none of Hon's seals started with this particular initial sub-seal, at least none of this magnitude. Especially with a continual request loop. A seal that literally drained the life out of its user, especially for something as inconsequential as mapping a cave, wasn't the most useful seal.

It wasn't a massive draw on his chakra, but it was continuous. Someone had drilled a drain in his hand and chakra was swirling down it like water down a sink. And it wouldn't stop. The latent chakra hovering just underneath his skin was quickly sucked away. The easy chakra in his core was quickly disappearing. Soon even that was gone and in order to keep the seal from pulling away his raw physical life energy, Naruto began drawing on the deeper well that he had already tapped once today.

"Oooww," The drain on him was starting to hurt. A wire was being pulled tighter and tighter inside his body.

Chakra was a mixture of the characteristic physical and spiritual energies present within a body. Yin and Yang. Chakra owed its stupendous chaotic effect on the environment to the pressure it exerted on reality. Chakra, Hon had explained in one of his mid-level scrolls on sealing, was the energy of existence. It puts weight on reality and causes the fabric of time and space to bend around it. Even the small quantities found in every living thing were enough to bend the universe enough to allow strange and extraordinary events to occur. The amount of chakra found in and created by a given person, is directly related to the "amount they exist." Physical energy could be developed by increasing a person's influence, weight, in the physical plane. Strength, speed, muscles and bones were the tools used carve out chunks of practical reality for a body. Cunning, peace, knowledge, wisdom were the measures of a strong spiritual presence upon the higher plane. When combined, the physical and spiritual energy of a body made a new energy: chakra, which could be used as a bridge between the two; exerting the strength of the spirit upon this practical reality, or taking the tools of this world and using them to manipulate the spirit world. However, now Hon-sans warning came back: "Total depletion of our physical and spiritual energies results not in death, but in the muting of our existence. If, when using chakra we steal from those intimate stores, we may find that we no longer have any influence upon either world, and become no different than stones with memories."

Oh gawd. Just how big had he made the reservoir? Naruto had made it big, but he had just kind of picked an arbitrarily large number. Roughly three chakra "units" for every three square meters, times roughly... big... Welp, if he ever survived this, which was looking about fifty-fifty now, he could totally modify this into a chakra draining trap. Naa, Hon still had better seals than this for that purpose.

Naruto didn't actually know how much chakra he had stored up in his deeper reserves. One thing that was interesting to note was the hot and cold chakra was significantly more common than in the latent or easy chakra. And much hotter and colder than ever before.

Oh and he hurt all over. Hurt like hell. Hurt like he was losing his existence.

"One more thing-"

"Now is probably not a good time." Naruto grunted, "I think I'm going to pass out."

Note to self, Naruto started to think, but unfortunately even his short term memory didn't get the chance to learn what it was supposed to take note of because at that moment some critical level was passed somewhere deep inside his body and he shut down.

And suddenly the dark was inside his head.

And there was a lot of it.

::boy::

The word hung in the dark air of Naruto's mind exactly like bricks don't. It had this quality to it that made it sound like it had been spoken by something to whom mountains were large stones that hurt slightly when you kicked them, but would, after lodging a complaint, move. Also hot. How words that didn't actually seem to be words could be hot, Naruto hadn't the faintest, but the word was most definitely hot.

Being unconscious did weird things to his head, Naruto decided.

Wait.

If he was unconscious, then how did he know he was...

Suddenly a cool - no cold – breeze blew away the oppressive heavy heat that Naruto hadn't even noticed. This air felt powerful... not that the other aether of his unconscious hadn't felt undoubtedly powerful, but it had dominated because of its size. This frozen energy in his deep-mind was... a sun condensed by a glacier into mist and strained through a blade.

Then a blast of hot, like opening an oven heated by a volcano, pushed away the cold from deeper inside the darkness.

"Attention, All Departments: Emergency consciousness defense protocols have gone into effect. Repeat: Emergency consciousness defense protocols have gone into effect."

Hmm? Naruto looked around for the unvoice that sounded like a cross between him and a grocery store clerk. Yeah sure he liked to make jokes to himself that his subconscious communicated via mildly humorous memos, but those had just been jokes. Right? Naruto slowly floated down passed the small, but adorably rendered, clones of himself running around like decapitated fowl. This was all some kind of sick chakra depletion dream. Yeah that was it.

"Note to self," Naruto said to no one in particular, "never do this again."

He stared at the scrap of paper that had materialized next to him. Of course it had his note to himself. What was next? "Oh, oh, oh! Pick me, pick me." Naruto's thought to himself... inside his own brain... inside his own brain... Ouch, that was stupidly recursive, "I'll get to meet Psycho, Deadpan, and Crazy in their natural habitat!"

Sure enough, leaping from the walls of his mind and bounding of the bubbles rising through his subconscious Naruto could see the three fractured clones. Though upon closer inspection they didn't actually look much like him in this light and seemed flatter, like they had been cut from a sheet of mental cardboard.

Make a seal, try to find your way out, get knocked out by an absurdly large number. Naruto probably deserved to wake up wrapped in a straight coat after seeing how his subconscious worked.

Nope, he didn't want to know what that thing that just walked by him was. Brains were like sausage, Naruto decided, you didn't want to know what went on inside them. Just operate on the normal level of conscious and thing's don't have to get weird.

He began to sink deeper into the inside of his mind and farther away from his the chibi representations of his inner mind. Down here in the deeper recess of his mind it felt like walking through a skeleton. The raw, red, bones of thought were moving around him, like marble gears grinding away. Somewhere there was a great hammer falling steadily. Thump. Thump. Thump. Constantly and without changing the sound gave the impression that it had filled this silent factory since before it came into being. Like towering trees made of stone and fire the forages of his soul were growing up around him as he sank lower. Through the luminescent inverted pits something that appeared like a giant bellows moved under the weight of a giant's foot.

And the hall rang with the steady beat of the never ending hammer.

Naruto kept descending.

Soon even the hammer song faded into a rippling echo in the aether below thought. The "air" around Naruto felt like it was being crushed. Forced to turn from wild gaseous thought into a sluggish hum by the weight of everything above it. Yet even as the blackness of unconsciousness pressed him harder and harder, even as he felt like he would crumple with the force of it, he seemed smaller here. Like the space around had suddenly grown much bigger. The aether seemed older than the hammer beat.

Below him there was a spark of light.

Like a star at the bottom of the ocean welcoming the lost souls of a sinking ship, it shone. The cold light wrapping itself around Naruto it pulled him through the slurry of his soul. The light was freezing around him. Pushing its way into him every time he opened his mouth.

The more the light penetrated him, the warmer the freezing aether became. Which was odd, because Naruto had the feeling that the closer he came to the star the more frozen the air should become. Resting his chin on his thumb Naruto pondered this.

Cold.

So cold.

Frozen cold.

The air around him was freezing, his frosty breath confirmed that. But his skin could give frostbite to itself. He was sinking faster than the currents of energy around him. Swirls and eddies rippled around him as the energized slurry of light and existence rushed up toward the mechanics, toward the departments, toward the darkness of his consciousness. He was falling down.

::boy! what have you done?::

Luminescent darkness rushed around the star. Like an inverted corona the impossibly bright darkness reached out to grab him. In response the blue-white star flashed brighter and relinquished its hold on his body. It held up a shield of obscuring light against the shimmering dark. But the dark was persistent, shining its beam with an ever growing radius so that even the brightest pinprick of light could not eliminate it all.

One tendril of the unbearably hot thing beyond the star wrapped itself inside Naruto and yanked him passed the blinding cold star.

Star.

Storm.

Pit.

The darkness was forced to let Naruto go as he passed through the storm. Caused by the clash between the star and the thing in the pit the storm raged with awesome ferocity. Heavy, cutting winds sprinted in every directions, charging and retreating toward flashes of lighting that momentarily eclipsed the star in brightness and the pit in depth. Solar winds from the star met with the hot heavy breath of the thing, the other, that lived underneath the grate that covered the pit. The pits covering groaned with effort as the thing made of black light tried to claw its way out.

::what have you done?::

The thing in the pit spoke. Its voice was familiar, like he had heard its whispers in his dreams and nightmares, but unlike all the other unvoices and non-sounds that he had heard in his descent through his inner self, this was not his.

Dodging a planet that was tossed about by the storm Naruto called back, "Who are you?"

Black-red eyes flashed open deep in the pit and two massive, five fingered, claws slammed against the grate sending a blistering gust of power through the cracks. He raised his hand to shield his face and the cold light of the star flowed in front of him like another pair of hands. Where the glacial light and volcanic dark met they were instantly converted into two miniature hurricanes.

:: who do you think? ::

The uncountable number of teeth spoke. Each tooth was large enough to crush a mountain and sharp enough to cut through anything. They were tools of genocide. Even their pearly white sheen couldn't hide the stench of smoke and boiling blood that issued forth like steam from the maw of the beast. The eyes glowed with the light that scared the sky so much that it hid it deep below the dark earth. The torches of hell must have been lit with those eyes.

"K- K- Ky-" Naruto's dry tongue wouldn't respond as stared into the face, now illuminated by its own dark glow, of the Kyuubi. The nine tailed demon fox.

This... this thing was really inside him?

::weakening... failing... it would be a pleasure to watch you fade:: The fox laughed.

Somewhere a child died.

::and when you die. hmmm, what then::

The words dripped like boiling honey from the fox's tongue. And he grinned.

::you will just be a body::

Naruto tried to run away from the monster. But the storm wouldn't let him move in the direction he wanted.

::just a shell::

Naruto watched as one of the four planets stuck in the storm was flung toward him. Reaching out he grabbed onto it as it passed. Instead of being pulled along by it's momentum like Naruto had hoped. The planet stopped. Still. Unmoving in despite the gale ripping around it.

::you won't exist any more::

::but I will::

Naruto, hanging on to the planet as best he could, saw immediately what the fox meant. He would become like that girl in the cave. Possessed. Owned. He might be a bolder with memories, but the fox surely had enough chakra to take the deed to Naruto's body. It would pay the utilities for as long as it needed. That was until it discovered a way to break the seal that kept it locked in its cage in the pit. It might even be able to use Naruto's own memories! It could get to Hon's library!

It could be free in weeks!

::ooh, yes, I could do that couldn't I::

The demon grinned.

"You- you can read my thoughts!"

::no, I hear your soul::

Soul. How could it hear his soul? That wasn't... unless.

Something churned in Naruto's not-existent stomach.

The eyes of the villager looking at him with disgust and hatred, the nights before he met Hon and after he left the orphanage, the feeling of confusion and hatred back at those people who hurt him and hated him, images and feeling rushing in the wind of the storm in between the star and the pit.

He had never understood. Mizuki gloating above him. Iruka's blood flying from his chest. The shop keepers who tossed him out. The kidnappers. Hon's face as he died.

Naruto collapsed onto the dark planet. Tears welling up inside his eyes, bile welling up inside his mouth.

A seal needed a container to work properly. A point to connect the pocket of folded spacetime with normal reality. For most things there was a funny work around where folding time was enough of a container to work and all one needed was a simple chakra marker. But for more complex, more dangerous things, stronger more complex seals were required and those turned to substantive objects as a means to hold their charge. A human body was the strongest thing for a seal. Any human had enough existence to warp space and time enough to make fantastic seals. They provided their own energy. They didn't need to be recharged, or defended, and often times the flexibility of life smooth over some errors in the content of a seal.

However, now that Naruto thought about it, he realized a human body wasn't the absolute best medium for a seal container.

No, the absolute best thing to keep a unconscionably powerful creature sealed away would probably be a human life, body and soul.

::does it disgust you?::

Naruto's imagined heart didn't want to beat normally any more. His small intestine wanted to strangle his illusionary throat.

::not as much as me, I assure you::

::an demon like me, bound, grafted to a creature as insignificant as you::

::it disgusts me, too::

No.

It wasn't true.

This was a dream.

His brain was playing tricks on him because of his low chakra.

He couldn't actually talk to the demon sealed inside of his hara.

That was stupid.

That was ridiculous.

What kind of moron seal maker would devise a seal that allowed for interaction like that? Things outside a seal could only interact with certain methods inside the seal. Otherwise things would get dangerous, and stupid, and weak, and the seal would never work properly. The 4th Hokage had to be smarter than that. Plus an actual method that let you talk with a demon? That was just asking for possession.

A dream.

A confluence of Naruto's fears and lingering thoughts rearranged by his mind and played back again for meta-analysis.

This was all inside his head. That storm, not really there. The cold star above him. Just an example of his musings on different temperatures in his chakra. The beast. Well he had been fighting a demon not to long ago.

A dream.

A nightmare.

You couldn't seal things with a soul. Grafting demons onto humans was a classic example of his brain spurting out nonsensical dream logic.

Here, proof that this is a dream. Since he knew it was a dream he could control the vision. Suck up that storm inside his mouth.

Done.

See? Dream. Now all he had to do was fly away. Pass the star and find his conscious body again.

That was easy.

He wasn't a monster.

He was a human.

::we'll meet again::

No, that would be stupid. Dumb. Ridiculous. He would never meet the nonsensical near god-like entity residing in his stomach ever again. Because he hadn't actually met him now. All he had talked to was a manifestation of his fears.

"Bye, fuzzbutt!"

::WHAT DID YOU CALL ME::

And those planets were most definitely not named Crazy, Deadpan, and Psycho. There were four of them anyway. And there was no way Psycho had girly hearts drawn all over it.

See. Silly dream.

Silly dream.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

They were in a large cathedral like space when Kakashi felt the wave of chakra. Not quite as large or awe inspiring as the main cavern they passed through the first day, but none the less magnificent. It was also significantly less used so it some how felt more alive than the bone white massive cavern had felt. Water dripped along the walls silently creating ghoulish, or comical depending on your mindset, figures in the stone.

Kakashi didn't exactly call himself a sensor type, but you didn't rise up in the ranks with out having a fairly developed sense for chakra. You also didn't make it to jonin without having to find a chakra needle in a hundred hay stacks. No really, someone would charge up a needle with chakra and throw it into a hay stack several miles away and then your proctor would give you a map of all the haystacks in the area and expect you to point out which one it was in. And then they started asking silly questions like what part of the hay stack was it in? Which way was it pointing? Who charged up the needle? Who made the needle? What color was the bead on the end? (Green by the way)

So when someone, oh say a fairly average genin with a buttload of chakra sent a massive wave of the stuff rushing through the cavern, it wasn't particularly hard for him to spot... err, sense. The chakra had traveled quite a ways (and oddly almost exclusively through the air) so he could forgive a chunnin for not noticing it. He was actually kind of proud when Sasuke reacted to the wave of energy. Not that he could get anything more than a general direction, but hey, even that was pretty impressive.

Sakura? Eh, well she'd get there, hopefully.

There was something a bit odd about the chakra that Naruto was emitting, but that probably had to do with the seal that he was no doubt using to project it this far. Of course there was always the chance that Naruto wasn't using a seal, but actually releasing the massively destructive beast stored within him dooming them all to a swift and splatterific death.

The wave of chakra bounced around the room for several seconds before fading. The echoes of the wave rippled back from the dark caverns ahead of them.

"Hnn." Sasuke looked around furtively. Carefully the boy produced a kunai from his weapons pouch without making a sound. Hmmm good instincts, quick reaction.

Kakashi watch the boy to see what he would do. Sasuke's muscles were ready to lash out at a moments notice and his eyes were scanning the dark with ferocious intensity. Not that he would find anything; even if there were something in this cathedral-like room, the darkness outside of their small circle of light was profound enough to hide almost anything from just ones eyes. He did keep the torches to his back though, minimizing the damage they caused to his night-vision, but that wouldn't be enough.

Oh it was tempting. Oh so tempting.

Oh, why not? Kakashi finally gave in to his cheekier side.

"What's up, Sasuke? Scared of the dark?" The genin jumped and swung his small blade with astounding speed right for Kakashi's neck. It was easily stopped, and totally worth seeing the look on the normally impassive boy's face. Grumbling the boy turned back around and looked out into the darkness.

"But really, Sasuke. What's gotten into you? You seem nervous all of a sudden." Kakashi noticed his students' surprize as he pointed out Sasuke's apprehension.

"it's nothing. I thought I felt..." but the rest of Sasuke's answer was to quiet and indistinct to be understood.

"Oh, that? That chakra just now? That was just Naruto, nothing to worry about really."

"Wait, you know where Naruto is? Is he okay? Where is he? Why, when I find him I'm going to beat his ass for making us get lost like this."

"Now, now, Sakura. I assume he's okay, there wasn't any killing intent in the chakra I just felt plus there doesn't seem to be any more so I doubt he's fighting anything right now. Don't worry, we'll find him eventually and then you can beat him to your little sadistic content."

It was kind of amazing seeing a genin made of nothing but pink and red. You couldn't even tell where her forehead ended and her hair began. Teasing genin was so much fun, it almost made up for getting assigned a pain in the ass mission like this. Almost.

"But what if that thing finds him first?"

Ever pessimistic Sasuke.

"He only has Izo to worry about, so he'll probably be in a better situation to fight than we were just in. I'm sure he'll be fine." Kakashi responded, plus he figured given his track record with failed assassination attempts, death and the hyperactive boy didn't get along very well. Still... Kakashi's gaze drifted toward the darkness from which the chakra had come.

"Um, Sensei," Sakura spoke quietly, keeping her eyes focused on the darkness around them, "What was that thing that attacked us? It looked almost like a little girl, but I've never seen anything move that way."

"What do you think it was Sakura?"

"I- It almost seemed like a devil."

"Not quite, close, but not quite," Kakashi responded. He signaled that they would need to squeeze through a smaller portion of the trail, barely wide enough for the cart to fit through. "I would say that was a demon, at least one possessing a young girl."

"But sensei, in school they told us that demons didn't exist any more. Iruka-sensei said they were all wiped out after the third shinobi world war."

"True, I can't think of any reports of actual demons, but just because something hasn't been seen doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Take Sasuke's sense of humor for example."

"Hnn."

"Sensei, that's not true!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, but I've never seen him laugh at one of my jokes."

"That's because none of your jokes are funny!"

"That's not true, my jokes are hilarious. Like that time I tied you all to a tree? That was hysterical."

His little genin both turned and looked into the darkness, pouting. Kakashi sighed and glanced down at the ground, trying to judge where the worn path would turn next. "Besides, even if it is a demon, it doesn't seem like its very powerful or dangerous. If you had been thinking, I'm sure you all would have been fine. No, who can tell me why you had so much trouble fighting that little girl."

"Because our attention was split." Sakura answered.

"Yeah, that's part of it, but why else?"

"Umm, because it knew the environment better than we did."

"True, it did have that advantage over you, but even so, I think you would have done better if..." he let the insinuation hang in the air for a bit, hoping that his students could find the right answer. They always seemed to learn things better if they could just come to the conclusion themselves. Plus it was good practice, because in the real world, answers wouldn't come on a silver platter.

"We had not panicked" Sasuke finally stated.

"Huh?" Sakura looked back at Kakashi and nearly slipped on the slick uneven ground.

"Think about it. Was that thing faster than you?"

Sakura seemed to be thinking about it when Sasuke shook his head, "No, I was most definitely faster than it."

"Okay what about the environment?"

"We were trapped in an enclosed space like a hall way, aside from the crack that Naruto fell through there were no foreseeable ways of approach or escape."

"But what about the high cave roof, and all the weird shapes in the walls. Didn't it use them to move around us?" But Sakura seemed to answer her own question, "But if we had been thinking we could have used that extra time it was in the air to attack it with our shuriken or kunai, right?"

Sasuke nodded and began to look around the cavern differently. Kakashi could almost see his eyes sifting out locations to make a stand. His eyes lingered a bit on a small hollow, the wall was covered in a layer of flowing water that reflected their light.

"What else could you have done better?"

"Leaving them in the middle of the path was a mistake." Sakura said nodding subtly at the clients.

Kakashi smiled as his two students quietly discussed improvements they could have made to their encounter. Sasuke retreated back into his stoic shell, but now that Sakura was on a role, she more than made up for his quietness. It was... nice watching them interact like this. It sure beat the teams normal dynamic. All that was missing was Naruto.

Where the hell are you? Kakashi wondered. Despite that wave of strange chakra, Kakashi was completely unable to sense his student in the cave. Naruto had mentioned the cave was bigger than anyone knew, but just how big could it really be?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Ow. Ow. Ow." Naruto droned monotonously as his conscious slowly began to put on his body again. "Oh, ramen, I know it should hurt, but it doesn't. Which terrifies me more than anything." He said to no one in particular. He was just plugging his brain back into his short term memory, which reminded him that there was probably one very miffed (and maybe dead, depending on how long he had been out) client somewhere in the darkness around him, when the pain receptors were reactivated.

"Erg!" His muscles twitched, balling him up into a cramping, pain racked pile of sad sad ninja. "Yep, there it is."

"Just one thing..." He didn't know which was more painful, every cell in his body tingling with defiance at the amount of chakra he had drained from his own system, or hearing that annoying voice as soon as he woke up. The voice eventually cut through the pain, mentioning something about being dead and hungry.

Naruto could have been out for days, he realized.

"Ah, yeah, food. Give me a sec. OW!" Even the little bit of chakra necessary for unsealing a days worth of field rations was incredibly painful. "Note to self, never ever do that again."

"Anyway here," Naruto pushed several of the hard nutrition bars toward where the voice of Lord Izo was coming, "They're just field rations, so they taste pretty horrible, but they'll make you feel better in no time. Hopefully."

As an added bonus since the bars were so dry and chewy they also succeeded in shutting the man up for a while as Naruto regained control over his protestant mussels.

"Did you say, how long I was out?"

The garbled reply suggested that he had been out for a very long time, the poor manners coming from a very hungry noble suggested longer. Naruto rubbed the back of his neck, a refund might be in order given how well this mission was going. Sighing Naruto turned to pull out the scroll the map of the cave should have been transcribed onto, and then he remembered, oh yeah, light. Finding and eating field rations could be done by touch, reading a map was a little bit harder. Naruto felt around for the kunai that he had used to shine some light on the situation earlier, but then stopped. If opening a seal had felt like dipping his finger in boiling water... he might not be able to actually get the kunai glowing again.

Stealing himself, Naruto pushed some chakra into the blade once he found it. To his surprize waves of burning pain did not course through his limbs; his surprize doubled when the blade began to glow steadily and easily. Part of him felt more complete with the blade in his hand, like it was a part of him, somehow. Well, at least now Naruto understood a little better what those cryptic kenjutsu scrolls had been talking about.

Pulling open the scroll Naruto's eyes widened. The map just kept going. He had kind of expected the map to take up a couple of feet, he had designed the scale for it to fit that way, but as he kept opening the scroll the map kept going. For some people this scroll could have been their lifes work, and Naruto figured it almost _was_ his. He had managed to completely map the entire cave system that, apparently, stretched under much of the northern half of the Land of Fire. This cave was...

big.

Really really big. He had thought it was a long way's to Ichiraku's Ramen from the library, but that was peanuts compared to the distance you could travel (not easily mind you) through the Dark Trail Tunnel.

"Okay then, where do you want to go. Looks like we can go a lot of places from here."

"Just one thing: You were hired to take me home. No where else."

"Right, I think we can do that!" Naruto smiled and picked himself up, pretty painlessly too.

"One more thing: How do you know where you are going?"

"I," Naruto proudly presented the scroll he had almost died for, "have a map."

The trip was not an easy one, many times the path narrowed down so they had to squeeze themselves size ways through long tight crag-like tunnels. Everything was damp and cold, the kind of cold that didn't do much to the skin but sank quickly to the bone and sat there accumulating weight. The kind of damp that made joints rust and freeze up, even if they were still alive. The air wasn't much better than the walls that they slid around. It was always cool and sometimes when the hazy sphere of blue light flung off of the glowing blade wasn't enough to reach the walls, there was the sense of infinite space around them, like nothing existed beyond the little dot of floor they walked upon.

Occasionally Naruto would push more chakra into the blade when the infinity of the darkness was too much, revealing sharp tiny teeth reaching down from the roof like they were in the mouth of some flesh eating worm or giant glistening cathedrals made of wet grey-white stone that appeared to have been melted to form strange unearthly statues.

They usually walked through small streams of incredibly clear water, because sometimes the floor was covered with small sharp stalagmites. These miniscule rock formation would either break underfoot, ruining hundreds of years of gradual growth, or piece right through a shoe or sandal and into the foot. But they had to be careful even then, sometimes the streams looked to be only a couple of centimeters deep but could actually reach down much much deeper than that. Naruto thanked his lucky stars that he had gotten stuck with Lord Izo, the scrawny, if annoying, old man, because he would have never been able to carry Tobimaru like he sometimes had to carry the old man.

The journey was equal parts amazing and awful, beautiful and evil, adventure and chore, but despite their fears they didn't seem the possesed child for a long long time.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Do you really think they're even alive, sensei?" Sakura looked up at Kakashi. In the dim light that streamed from the entrance to the cave he could see some tears welling up in her eyes.

"I do, Sakura." Kakashi turned the page of his book, they had set up camp near enough to the entrance that the light was enough to read, but not to much too damage their dark vision very much. "Sure, some people die on their first real mission, but I don't think Naruto is one of those people. Give him a little bit more credit."

Sakura nodded and turned back to watching the cave.

They had already found their way out and taken Tobimaru and Jaki home, their week long mission had turned into a much longer affair. That wave of Naruto's chakra was the last they had heard of the boy, but... The boy had come out of a lot worse situations that this, Kakashi thought, remembering the kids goofy grin.

Suddenly, very far away, Kakashi felt something. A familiar glowing presence deep within the cave, but close enough now to be felt.

"In fact, I think we'll be seeing him very soon." Kakashi stood up and with one hand began putting his things back into his pack, reading with the other hand.

"Why do you... what are you doing sensei?" Sakura asked, but she, like the good little genin she was, was already packing her things too. Sasuke didn't really need to pack up, even when they had set up camp after taking the clients home he hadn't really unpacked. He's movements were quick and spontaneous, and he jittered a little when he stood still. Was he ready to move? Anxious to get out of the cave? Did he really want to see Naruto? Kakashi guessed it was a little of all three.

"Come on, kids, let's go say hi to Naruto!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Yes. There.

Here. Closer.

The one that threw blue fire was approaching. She had lost him. She had searched for him, but his smell had gotten lost in the darkness which she had not visited before.

The tunnels kept twisting and turning, looping back on themselves and trying to shake her off, darkness fighting darkness.

So they had decided to set a trap.

Just like they set traps for the crunchy bloodless things that they ate when blood stopped coming down into the darkness.

Wait for him in a place he has to come. Put things that smell nice on the rocks.

When the other blood came back near the bright light mouth darkness had decided not to eat them. It wanted it's prize first.

Bait.

They were bait, then food.

But the prize was coming.

He was close.

She could smell his tasty spicy scary blood. More blood beside him. Coming up through one of the skinny dark tunnels that blood never ran through before.

Darkness could eat him there. Darkness would sneak up on him and wait in the darkness.

And then they would eat him. Then they would tear him. The would rip off his head and bash it against the wall. They would eat his brains. They would crack his chest and bite into his heart. They would slurp up his blood from the ground.

The tunnel, she had used it when there was much blood in the cave to watch. She had hid in it many times.

It went deep into the darkness, very deep. She had not gone that deep because there was no blood there.

Where could she wait? Darkness didn't know, she didn't know.

She could sit here and watch the darkness, Darkness would watch the darkness until prey arrived. Then they would pounce then they would feast. Then they would...

Darkness was eager. So eager. So hungry. So dark. So very dark.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"And one more thing: Did you know that the Caves that General Tso hid in during the miss named "Chicken Rebellion" are actually connected to this cave system? No. No one did, until now. Oh the Chicken Rebellion is really this hilarious war. I mean we call it the Chicken Rebellion, but we get the name from the song that the Fire Lord's troops would sing sometimes around the fire mocking the rebels. You still hear the tune from time to time but the words have changed to something much more austere and noble that way people aren't reminded of chicken poop and decapitated fowl running around. They sang about chickens because General Tso, who was neither a general nor a chicken farmer like the song suggests - really he was the scorned bastard son of a lesser noble in the area - took the mascot of a chicken with bloody feet as his own. He was kind of a fan of cock fighting and wanted to have his fighters know for their ruthless tenacity and persistence, but he really did leave himself open for that one.

"But anyway, in the end the short lived, but bloody rebellion, was just this horrendous massacre. Tso was kind of high off of a string of seven or eight victories, two of them pretty big upsets, and was being produced by honestly a weaker force, but he comes across this cave. I guess he was remembering other times where armies hid inside caves to throw off pursuers, but being not to well educated the moron didn't know that those caves usually had obscured entrances. Suffice to say, they found him and attacked him. They fled deeper into the caves and were never seen from again. Well until a couple of kids went spelunking and started coming back with the treasures he had taken on his short lived conquest. They've called the cave "Tso's roasting pot," but it's actually part of this cave. Isn't that cool?

"Just one thing:" Izo jumped in when Naruto paused to look at the map, the boy had been talking almost non-stop for hours now, surely he had to run out of air sometime, "why do you know so much about the wars of the world? You are a ninja, they did not participate in that war."

"Oh, don't be silly, shinobi are in every war. Think about it, we hire armies for our shinobi wars, just like you hire us shinobi. Infantry is important and everything, cheaper usually too, but sometimes you just need someone really good. We just don't like to show our face in normal wars very much, cus say what you want, even an S-ranked shinobi is going to have some problems against a even a hundred well trained soldiers. Actually, that's kind of why I know so much about the Chicken Rebellion, I mean aside from it's silly name. My Master fought with the troops that "fried General Tso." I wanted to know more about him when he died, so when I learned he fought in the war, I read all I could about it.

"Just one thing: Isn't the scarecrow man you're master, he doesn't look dead."

"Cock-eye-sensei? Naa, he's my sensei. My Master was someone different, he died several months ago." Naruto trailed off much subdued from the animated encyclopedia that he had been minutes ago.

"And one more thing: I am sorry your master died. And one more thing: you are good kid, if annoying, and loud, and lost, and short, and weak, and lazy."

"Umm, thanks? Oh the path narrows out up here in a little bit, but after that we're on the main path, we should be out of here in less than an hour!"

"And one more thing: we need to find Jaki and cart."

"What about your nephew?"

"Jaki and cart are more important."

"Right, well, I'm pretty sure that Cock-eye-sensei and my team already got them home. I felt them leave a _long _time ago"

"What! You knew they left and did not tell me!"

"I didn't want to worry you! Besides, I my team came back and they're not too far away, you'll get home just fine. Don't worry."

"And one more thing: How do you know where they are, but got us lost seventeen times?"

Naruto waved the rolled up scroll in front of him, "Seal magic? Remember? Okay not really magic, but part of the mapping seal was a tracking component that I managed to get to override some of my proximity sensor. I can kind of sense where they are for a couple of kilometers. General direction only, but its good enough. Anyway, I felt my teams chakra markers fade out of the area a while ago, I suppose maybe it was a day or two ago then, and now they're back. I didn't tell you because since they faded out, I guessed that meant they left, not died. Trust me, if they had died or something, you would have known." Naruto's face hardened in the pale blue light; the clenched jaw and wrinkled brow suggested much deeper thoughts than he cared to share.

Naruto stuck the glowing blade around the corner of the tight hall and peeked around. Finding this portion of the cave traversable he proceeded, Lord Izo just behind.

Just one more bend, according to his map. Maybe a hundred feet and they would be back on the main path, an hour or two from the main entrance. Naruto wondered what time it was outside. Was it dark, had their sleep schedule been inverted sunk in the dayless abyss? Or was it dawn? Time felt weird when you couldn't see the sun. And Izo slept more than him, a lot more than him, so Naruto hadn't the faintest inkling of the diurnal cycle anymore.

Rounding the last light curve in the tight crag, Naruto stopped. This would be a problem. The opening before them was just about the right size for a child, certainly wide enough for the chakra for his seal to get through, but jeez, there was no way either of the were fitting through that. The crag did not shrink any vertically, but the lip of the tunnel seemed to have been folded back so that a huge flap covered hid this branch quite well from the other side. The opening was widest near the bottom, where a stream of clear cave water had eroded a hole large enough for a toddler to crawl through. Near the ceiling too the space opened up, but around Naruto's eye level the gateway was only a couple of centimeters wide. Suddenly it seemed quite like they were standing sideways in some giant stone mouth, a limestone tongue arching up to swallow them.

"Hm. This is problematic." There was no way to know how thick the tongue of rock was, the light from the kunai didn't reach far enough to illuminate the far wall or cast a shadow, not that that would have helped much. A cursory investigation revealed that at eye level it was thinker that a hand's breadth. Even soft stone like limestone still hurt tremendously to punch, so Naruto decided against that.

"Really?" Naruto asked himself, "All this way and our greatest adversary is a rock?"

His first inclination was to write up an explosive note, slap it on the rock and be done with the whole thing. His second thought was: no that's stupid and liable to get us all killed when the cave collapses on us. Thought the third was: what if it's a really small explosion? But no that probably wouldn't work, and still might get them killed. But what about a very carefully regulated medium size explosion? That wasn't very descriptive because there was no upper limit on big so finding an acceptable medium was kind of impossible. Finally Naruto stopped this whole line of thought and ruled out explosions all together.

Sulking a little bit, Naruto's creativity wasn't forthcoming with many other solutions.

Unfortunately this seemed like a problem that neither favored problem solving method would solve. He didn't have a hammer to enlarge, nor did debugging suit the problem of disappearificating rock. Even Naruto's third, but slightly illegal method of escaping problematic situations (namely dropping his buggy clones into the area and fleeing) didn't seem like a particularly useful solution to the problem.

Naruto looked down at his glowing blue kunai and through. Whatever happened to make the blade glow like this had made it almost instinctual, the glowing kunai exercise which had become something of a meditation practice as of late, was completely useless now. It just glowed now; he could turn it on and off, but he didn't have much control. He didn't need to regulate the chakra, it was always in almost the perfect amount, at least with this particular kunai. Dang, and it had really helped him calm down and think.

Wait.

Chakra streaming was normally used to increase the combat capabilities of weapons, not making chakra lanterns. Which, by the way, if he were anybody else chakra lantern kuani was an incredibly inefficient and stupid idea. It could make blades sharper, stronger, easier to control, hotter, even channel jutsus through the blade...

What did just pure unfettered chakra produce? Naruto wondered.

Naruto reached out and wedged the edge of the blade into a small cleft in the stone tongue. It was kind of like trying to cut a cold block of butter, but yeah, he could actually move the blade relatively easily through the stone. He quickly found that trying to cut through the thicker parts of the stone was a lot more difficult though.

"Stand back!" He spoke with shakespearian gusto, "for I am about to peel a rock!"

Yeah, it really wasn't all that exciting, but it looked like the best method of approach was to shave the rock down little by little until they could wedge themselves in through the open space.

"Just one thing: how long will that take."

Naruto turned to look at the man, "That depends, how much can you suck up your gut?"

It was fairly slow going, but progress was progress. Soon the couple of centimeters had been widened into enough space to fit an arm through. He would have to make it a bit wider for Lord Izo than for himself, but Naruto figured he could make this. He tested every once and a while just to see how far he could wedge himself in the opening. He was just about able to get his chest through and had started shaping space for his head when he felt something grab his arm.

Gip like a vice, a hand clamped down around his elbow as he angled the blade to get at the opening from the other side. Needless to say, a hand out of the darkness crushing his joint caused Naruto to scream. Which in turn cause Izo to scream, which in a fear inducing feedback loop inspired Naruto to scream louder... well that and suddenly getting pulled through the very opening he had been trying to widen.

He could feel the stone digging into his skin. The stone around his chest constricted his breathing, the rock around his head threatened to tear off his nose. Naruto tried to reach out for something — anything — to get a lever on this force that was dragging him away. He managed to get one eye to look at his client as he reached out for him, but the ashen man seemed to have fainted with his eyes opened, if he hadn't died of a heart attack on the spot. The hand wouldn't let go. The small but incredibly strong hand was crushing his bone.

Naruto heard a crack and felt unimaginable pain flare up from his sternum, and suddenly it was only his sideways head that was keeping him wedged into the stone. His head felt like it was going to pop as it wedge itself tighter and tighter.

With the sound and sense that the majority of his nose was gone Naruto slipped through the crack into the darkness.

What ever the hand belonged to released him and threw him against aa wall. Naruto's head, what ever was left of it, slammed against the stone. And the world went fuzzy and dark.

In the blue light there was something with terribly tangled tentacles of hair hiding it's face crawling toward him. The small pail creature made a slurping slucking sound as it bent down and licked the blood off the cave floor.

"Yheass"

Naruto's damaged conscious swore.

It was back.

0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0

Crazy: Guess who's back? Back again?

Onix: I don't even know anymore.


	12. Chapter 12

So many fuzzy, indistinct sensations scampered around. Malformed half-born thoughts tumbling turbulently together trying to tie themselves together in some semblance of sense. Naruto wasn't able to name a single feeling rising above the others in the cruel red haze that suffocated rationality... Cold and clammy, something caressed the hot wet pain on his chest. It started low and moved its way up, both calming the burning heat with its dampness and eliciting etching excitations of discomfort as it moved.

Thoughts finally cut through the malaise that he had sunk into. Naruto began to take stock of his situation, a task made infinitely more difficult by the sensation of pain bombarding his brain from every direction; they threatened to drag him into complete unconsciousness and most certainly would have succeeded but for that cold dampness that had moved back to his belly and was sliding its way up his chest again; that and some undefinable sense that falling asleep now would permanently transport him to the land of Nod.

His sight was dark and blurry except for the bright splashes of color and light that seemed to come from behind the lense of his eyes. Focussing hard on the world outside of his head, he could make out ghostly blue shadows and reflections that were too steady to be pain overwriting his vision. Something moved in the lower corner of his view. Commanding head and eyes to move so that he could better assess the situation he looked down, but his muscles complied only begrudgingly and with many uncomfortable complaints. Something black and shaggy was sliding up and down his torso, clearly the source of the cold wet feeling that still slithered over his skin.

That was another thing, his clothes, long tattered and ragged, were now ripped and torn. The vast majority of the front of his wardrobe was missing. Rough uneven edges showed that they had been unceremoniously defaced, much like the skin underneath. Like the clothing above it the skin of his chest looked like it had been scraped off by a massive medieval cheese grater. Blood dripped as crimson tears until they met a flowing stream, making a complex river network on his chest until it pooled in the oceans on the rocky floor beneath him. When they dark mop of hair moved down to his belly again, Naruto saw that the cold sensation had disturbed the blood, seemed to be sucking it away.

The cold sensation was a tongue, Naruto's fuzzy brain supplied, the young girl - possessed by a demon - was hungrily, but tenderly lapping up the sanguine liquid that was flowing from his chest and face and misplaced nose. Unbidden a wave of terrible, incomprehensible melancholy rose up in his throat; even for a second shutting out the panic that was settling in his stomach. The moment passed, however, before his lapse in awareness did any lasting harm.

Still his kunai was aglow with chakra, so he made a swipe at the demon with it. Leaping back she hissed and sputtered. With blood dribbling down her chin and neck she looked at Naruto with wide eyes. Emitting a terrible screech that sent more shivers down Naruto's spine then when Iruka accidentally scraped the chalkboard in the Academy. It threw itself at him.

Naruto was barely able to roll out of the way of her tiny but terrible hands. Forcing himself to stand, Naruto again narrowly avoided certain death. Now she was crouching in front of him, suddenly her hand shot out and wrapped itself around his ankle. Again Naruto felt the impossibly powerful grip of the young girl threaten to crush his bones. A foot applied with considerable force to her face was enough to persuade her to let go this time.

Naruto jumped back as quickly as his injured body would allow. Slowly the girl rose in the gloom and turned to face Naruto. He stared at her face, carefully watching for any movement that might give away her next action, and maybe give him a fraction of a second more to dodge. Suddenly the overwhelming sense of sadness returned. As he watched her face, the expression of rage and hunger couldn't hide the deeper pain expressed by the two solid onyx eyes. Unbidden the thought arose: what was this girl like before the demon took her body?

There was no time to further ponder that question. At the moment he didn't have a navel to contemplate much less a second to spare for silly thoughts. A demon was upon him.

Clumsily Naruto dodged the strike and somehow again tottered back out of her immediate reach. The cave was broad here and the floor dry and well trod, obviously part of the main trail that cut through the earth. Naruto backed up as far away from the wall as he could when the light of his glowing kunai revealed the demon child crawling up the wall like some oversized four legged spider. She launched herself of the wall, knees and elbows bent in such a way to provide the maximum amount of thrust regardless of normal human anatomy.

She, thankfully, landed just short of Naruto. The momentum of the leap not totally expended yet, Naruto lunged at the opening. Training, sparring, forms, or kata, none of that mattered now: stick it with the pointy end was about all Naruto could remember of his training. Fluidly the demon girl dodged the glowing blade. Somehow bending her arm reflex, far beyond a straight line, she made a swipe at the throat. Before she could sink her nails in his flesh however Naruto slammed his fist into the unhinged joint and the demon screamed.

Naruto smiled grimly, at least he wasn't the only one who could feel pain in this fight to the bloody death. The demon slunk back toward the shadows, but hovered menacingly at the edge of the circle of blue light cast by the kunai. Naruto notice that she held the elbow close to her body, obviously he had managed to inflict some retribution for the wounds she had caused him.

You know, right now, she didn't look like more than a dirty lost child. Scared, hurt, and alone, she could have been an ordinary girl, separated from her family who had been passing through the cave. Her hair, oily, tangled, covered in grime and blood hung limp from her pale scalp and dragged against the ground. How long exactly had she been living here like this?

Well if the brief had been correct the rumors of a demon in the cave had started months ago.

Then again, something occurred to Naruto: who could tell rumors if everybody who had seen the demon had died? The books that he had read about the Dark Trail Tunnel had talked about how easy it was to get lost in here if one wasn't careful. There were dozens of people who got lost every year in here, even big important groups of people.

No time to think much more about that now. She was attacking again. Naruto dodged and dove away from the girl, taking opportunities as he saw them. Unfortunately this was the best he could do. He didn't feel as terrible as he had a few minutes ago, but he had still lost several layers of skin off of his chest and his nose was still out of place.

He had to stay away from the walls as best he could, because there the demon had access to another dimension of movement, which place him at a severe disadvantage. As if all of his other problems weren't bad enough.

The fight wore on. Some how the unstoppable ball of deadly movement that was the result of a demon possessing a young child began to slow. It was kind of funny, Naruto could almost see the girl, happy, clothed, and with shorter hair driving her parents crazy running around the house. She might have crawled into cupboards and banged pots and pans together to draw attention to herself and away from her siblings. She was hungry for blood and the flesh of man now, but when she had been an ordinary girl she probably loved attention.

There was no way her hair could have grown that long while she lived in this cave. It was the growth accumulated over her whole short, but unfortunate life. It probably only knew the blade for small trimmings and touch ups. Maybe that was why Naruto felt another bolt of sadness and sympathy for the pitiful creature when his chakra enhanced blade chopped through her hair as she dodged one of his swings.

Naruto wondered if she had any siblings. Probably a brother, Naruto's blood-starved brain suggested. Sure, why not? She could have had an older brother. She could have had a mother and a father and an older brother. They could have been a happy merchant family; not wealthy but well to do in the "we-know-when-our-next-meal-is" kind of way, carrying their trade by themselves from one end of the Land of Fire to the other. Well, before some creature from the abyss interrupted their journey.

Naruto didn't know why he was creating some sympathetic backstory for the thing trying to kill him (and very nearly succeeding every time she attacked). It wasn't particularly useful in helping him dodge, nor was it doing anything to help him come up with a way out of this mess. Suffering from blood loss due to the massive leak in his circulatory system though, his brain seemed to only have two tracks for his trains of thought: one connected "DODGE" station and "STICK IT" terminal and the other meandered through his imagination revealing the landscape of this girl's made up life.

Stupid brain.

Carefully she crawled up the cavern wall, turning her head to keep Naruto's shining blade in the corner of her eye. After the frenzied action this break was agonizing. Naruto's muscles, skin, and bone protested, hating the idea of staying in this position for so long. Naruto's brain on the other hand finally decided to get back on a more useful track. Going back over her attacks Naruto realized a pattern. If she could, the demon girl would attack from behind or from the left. As expected, attacking his weaker side and avoiding the glowing blade in his right hand was common sense, but there was more to it than that. Even when his thrusts and jabs were way off the mark she would shy away from the blade.

Perhaps there was something there.

Naruto's bones hated sitting still, but apparently they hated moving even more. The command to move forward was only partially fulfilled. Spotty service in his body turned out to be worse than no service. Naruto tumbled forward when he shifted his weight in preparation for a mad dash at the kid on the wall but his legs weren't ready to run.

The ringing, not quite sound, sensation of falling was still echoing in his ear when he heard the soft sound of small feet hitting the stone floor. His head was situated in such a way so that he couldn't see her, but he could hear her approach. Slowly, cautiously the sound of her small bare footstep got closer and closer. His body had finally had enough, movement was no longer an option. His joints had locked up and worse than feeling frozen, there was this odd sense of unnatural heat against his skin.

He could hear the blood pumping in his ears. It threatened to drown out the footsteps.

The hair on the back of his neck shot up.

He felt the thin, small, burning hot fingers slide around his throat.

It was officially do or die.

Her hands clamped down on Naruto's neck and the spindly arms lifted him up. A small foot slammed itself down on top of Naruto's spine making him bend in ways almost as unnatural as the girl herself. This grip could juice whole oranges, smash melons, crush skulls.

Which would happen first? Would his head pop off? Would she snap his spine?

Something inside Naruto made him choose: do. Spasmodically Naruto jerked his arm back and caught the girls ankle with his blade severing the achilles tendon.

The hands around his neck disappeared. The pressure on his back fell away. Naruto dropped face first into the cavern floor and rolled over to look at the complete blackness above.

And then the shrieking began.

It was the kind of sound one expected to issue forth from the deepest pit of hell and torment. The kind that appealed to the deepest most primitive part of the brain, the part that dealt in the purest form of fear. As the single sense that Naruto had left - darkness filled his sight, his nose was still in the wrong spot, his whole body was numb with pain, and the only thing he could taste was his own blood - it was so much louder than it should have been.

He felt some unidentifiable thing land on his hand. On their own his fingers curled around it and held tight as it spasmed and struggled, wriggling and flailing around in the darkness. No matter how it struggled, Naruto's stoney grip wouldn't release it.

Unbidden, but inspired by the screeching dark Naruto's mind wandered back to the possessed girl. Images flitted through his mind.

Father smiled down on her.

Clinging tight to her mother as they passed into the mouth of the dark cave.

Brother bent down and ruffled her hair, "Don't worry. It's just a little dark. You're not scared of the dark, like a baby, are you?"

"No! I'm not a baby!"

Brother laughed, "you sure sound like one to me."

The shrieking, impossibly, grew louder. Echoing inside and outside Naruto's head.

There was something in the darkness!

Father stumbled to the ground. The torch he had been holding landed on the damp stone floor, sputtering and sparking, but it didn't go out. It cast strange evil shadows against on the wall. One like a hand reached down. Moving toward them, moving toward Father, the shadow grew.

It had a face.

It smiled.

It opened it's mouth.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Screams. Starting deep and masculine growing louder and higher every second.

Crunch.

Screams stopped.

Mother was screaming.

In her arms running.

Brother was crying.

They were running.

Into darkness.

Running.

Black on black,

Huge white eyes.

Great big fingers.

Reaching.

Suddenly light.

A room with a torch.

Stumbled. Falling.

Tumbling. Crawling.

Mother?

Black on red.

No more mother.

No more brother.

Just her.

And blood stained darkness.

Skin the color of ink it walked. Forward, staring at her. Smiling.

Dribbling from it's cheeks.

Darkness.

No!

Get away!

Stop!

Please no.

Don't touched me.

Don't grab me.

Leave me- NO!

STOP!

Don't do that!

Alone.

Not my face.

Don't touch my face.

Not my mouth.

Disgusting.

Stop!

Don't open my mouth.

Don't open my mouth.

Stop.

Touching me.

Crushing me.

Opening me up.

Skin peeling back.

Red.

NO!

Don't open me up!

Don't come inside me!

No inside.

No more!

I don't want-

It hurts.

Mother!

Father!

Brother!

Save me!

Help me!

Some one!

NO!

Don't.

Darkness flowing in through:

Mouth

Eyes

Nose

Ears

Can't breathe

No more.

no more

Can' breathe

no

more.

.

.

.

.

Darkness.

The face in Naruto's mind merged with the face like an anglerfish hovering above him, suddenly thrown into sharp relief by the strange flickering orange light.

It could only be the face of a demon.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Once, a long time ago, in a place far removed from where he was standing now, Penguin-san the ANBU had been ridiculed by his peers for being short and skinny. "Scrawny" "Twiggy" "Blow away in the wind." For some odd reason, his not-really-that abnormal height and body mass had served as a constant amusement to them.

People didn't make fun of him for that anymore. Partly because he had grown a great deal since those early days, partly because he was a highly skilled ninja capable of de-veining anyone who ticked him off. Details.

Up till now, Penguin-san hadn't minded growing up at all. Growing taller, stronger, quicker, what wasn't there to love about this whole "maturity" thing. Oh yeah, sure there were some places that he had used to hide in but couldn't anymore, but who cares? He could blow up buildings now. Not that he should blow up buildings, but he could. And that was reassuring to know.

Now however, not being able to fit through ridiculously skinny holes in rock walls was something of a problem. Hell, Naruto was about as scrawny as they came and he and only mostly fit through the gap that he had been widening. Even then Naruto's journey hadn't been exactly... slick. Okay, now the rock walls were pretty slick as they happened to be covered in blood and a birthday party's worth of skin confetti.

The kids arm was on there tight. Penguin-san was pretty sure if any normal person had suffered the jolt that Naruto had just gone through, their body would have said "forget this" and given up the arm. Naruto, as far as Penguin-san knew, was still whole on the other side of the rock curtain.

The annoying old man was silent. Mercifully. He had fainted when he witnessed Naruto's sudden exit. Wimp.

Okay, Penguin-san had jumped a little to when it had happened, but there wasn't a highly trained ninja watching his every move that could mock him.

That he knew of...

No. Penguin-san the ANBU was at a little bit of an impasse here. On the one hand, he needed to get through this gap to complete his mission. On the other hand, he wasn't supposed to leave any indication he was here, and you know the simple solution of just busting the wall down, kind of left a mark. Plus with Naruto's blood anywhere subtle changes would be kind of hard to do too. Hell, it had been difficult enough finding a place to stand that wouldn't leave behind bloody footprints.

Such was the life of one having to hide from the Scarecrow. There was no way that he wouldn't notice if even a couple of drops were smeared by his shoes. Competent people sucked.

Jumping past with a burst of instantaneous movement was a bust: to many ways to leave behind a trail, plus Penguin-san didn't exactly know what was beyond that wall and he didn't want to run into anything at blind speeds.

He did have one recourse, but as cool of a jutsu as it was, Penguin-san didn't much like using it because of what it did to his body. At the moment though, unless he wanted to admit that he had failed his mission because of a wall, it was his only option. So, Penguin-san the ANBU mentally prepared himself for the disconcerting experience of losing all his arms and legs.

And that was about the time that the screaming started.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The horrifying sounds echoed out from the depths of the cavern. Sasuke shot forward like a rocket, swinging around the corner he dove deeper into the cave. Just behind him ran Sakura, she was starting to fail, but the source of the shrieking had to be close by now. The two of them had been running at full tilt for almost ten minutes after the first peals had reached them.

Sasuke scowled a little bit as he shoved off a wall. He couldn't run nearly as fast as he wanted to right now. The flare in his hands only illuminated a fairly small area around him, and the cavern twisted in such a way that he had no idea what kind of terrain would come next. Even as it was he only had a fraction of a second to respond if the cave twisted in an unexpected direction.

They came around a corner to find two bodies lying in a huge puddle of blood. The whole cave was absolutely drenched in gore and the ground was slick. Behind him Sasuke heard Sakura gasp with shock and revulsion. Even he was a little taken aback by the magnitude of the carnage. Sasuke tried to fight back memories of his old home during the massacre.

Suddenly a third figure materialized from the darkness. Stretched and misshapen the thing hovered over one of the bodies. With a bulbous head and soulless black eyes it had a distinct lack of anything that could be called skin, just blackish muscle ontop of bone. It leaned down toward the head with bloodstained blonde hair.

Sasuke dropped his flare and was moving almost before he realized it. "Sakura!" He barked, "follow me and get Naruto's body. Move!"

"Right!"

Just as the thing was opening is malformed jaw, Sasuke kicked it. His foot connecting hard just under the monsters chin, it's head snapped back with a sick crack. It's whole spindelly body arched back as the head was carried up by the force of the kick. Before it could recover, Sasuke, foot planted on the slick stone, spun quickly, kicking it away. Pressing his advantage Sasuke followed the demon as it rolled away from his teammate, yanking a sharp kunai from his pouch. Behind him, he was aware of Sakura picking up the shredded body and dragging it away.

The demon recovered before Sasuke had a chance to make another attack. Moving in the same disturbing manner that the girl from before had, it bent its long thin arms at strange angles and shoved itself into the air. Twisting it the air it grabbed ahold of a fissure in the low ceiling. Clinging above him, the thing looked at Sasuke with its huge black eyes. Sasuke let his kunai fly, aiming right between those disturbing onyx orbs. The thing didn't have time to react and the blade landed true.

There was a bone freezing swack and it jumped away, out of the sphere illuminated by Sasuke's flare.

Kakashi was with Naruto, looking over his wounds, Sasuke wasn't sure how severe they were, but the body had looked pretty bad to him out of the corner of his eye. Judging from the amount of blood covering the cave, his bet was that the old man that had fallen along with Naruto had already been violently killed by the demon.

Speak of the devil. The monster returned to the light, clearly furious. The blade that Sasuke had so expertly lodged between it's eyes had disappeared, but it had left a sign of its presence. In the center of the demons face, splitting its non existent nose in half was a deep black hole, from which no blood poured. Sasuke supposed that he shouldn't be too surprised, but even so seeing something walk away perfectly fine from a lethal shot like that was a little disturbing. There was even proof that if that thing had been alive it would have died!

It made a leap at Sasuke—no! Over Sasuke! It was heading for the body that it hadn't finished eating yet. Sasuke spun around and chased after the demon as it bolted toward Sakura, Kakashi, and Naruto.

Sasuke expected Sakura to freeze up again, like last time. But it looked like she was holding her ground. True she flinched when she realize that the demon was coming toward her, but almost instantly she steeled herself and prepared. She might not have been as good a shot as Sasuke, but she waited just long enough so that the demon was well within her range before she fired of a pair of sharp shuriken. One looked like it nicked its chest, the other one appeared to lodge itself in its throat.

It didn't do much, hardly slowed the thing down. It must of not been able to feel pain, or not have a concept of physical pain at least. But it was just enough for Sasuke to catch up and block off the easiest means of escape when the demon realized that Sakura wasn't going to go down easy. She made a swipe at the demon, who pulled back, right into Sasuke's jab.

The kunai he had drawn and stabbed into the creature sunk into its back several inches. Sasuke had been expecting it to cry out in pain again, but instead it twisted and threw its surprisingly solid elbow into the side of his face. Sasuke was knocked aside, giving the demon back its escape route, which it immediately used to dodge another attack from Sakura.

Prowling one the dim edge of the sphere of light it reached back and tossed aside the blade stuck in it's back. Sasuke took the lull to consider their position. If that thing had been human it should have died at least three times already. Both of Sasuke's kunai should have been nearly instant kills and Sakura's shuriken would have caused a normal human to die too. This thing was still alive and kicking and aside from leaving disturbingly dark holes in the creatures not-really-flesh, their attacks didn't seem to be doing anything. Clearly another approach was needed.

Flashing through hand seals, Sasuke drew chakra from his core into his lungs. Sasuke took a deep breath, sucking in air until it felt like he might burst. He held it in, imagining the fire ball he was about to spew out, feeling its heat, envisioning it consuming everything unlucky enough to get caught in it. Then he pushed it all out, through the smallest hole his lips could muster. The blast of chakra laced air lit itself with the small point of intensely hot energy he had willed into his finger, and became a great orb of fire aimed straight at the demon.

As soon as the fire dissipated, Sasuke regretted his decision. If he was honest, he had to admit that he probably hadn't incinerated the demon with that attack, but he had obliterated his night vision by staring directly into his bright ball of flames. And the roar of the flames eating up the air would have masked the sound of the demon moving into another position.

Sasuke clamped his eyes shut and focused on the sounds around him, hoping to catch even a hint of that things movement. He wasn't good enough. Without warning Sasuke felt something slam into him, hard and fast, knocking him to the hard wet floor. His eyes popped open and he saw the angry terrible face of the thing leaning over him. For a second he was sure it would start eating his face, but a blue sandaled foot knocked it away.

"Are you alright, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura glanced over her shoulder as she stood above him defensively.

"I'm fine." Sasuke said, jumping up from the ground. "How is the dweeb."

"Um, alive? I think?" Sakura responded.

"Right, Sensei is with him. Right now, we don't need to worry about him. We need to slow this thing down."

"Right."

Sasuke caught some movement in the darkness out of the corner of his eye. "I'll go high, you go low."

It wasn't really a plan, or even a tactic, but it was something and until they could figure out how to put some permanent damage on this thing, it was as much as they were going to get. The thing made a gangly leap at the genin. Sasuke threw a brace of shuriken at its face. At least two of them stuck deep into its eyes. Sakura waited for the thing to land and delivered a low kick. Unfortunately she didn't have enough power in her sweep to knock the thing over, but she did manage to trip it up, giving Sasuke the opportunity to grab its arm and swing around behind it.

Had this been a normal person, he probably would have dislocated its arm. Unfortunately it wasn't a normal person and didn't seem to understand the how joints behaved. It didn't seem to suffer much pain from the wrenched arm, but even though it could move it with ease it still didn't have the leverage to escape Sasuke. It tried spinning about, but Sakura punched it in the face. Not elegant, not even really any kind of proper taijutsu, just a sucker fist into the things' eye.

The demon shrieked and wailed, surely causing some pretty serious damage to their eardrums, and violently yanked itself away from Sasuke.

As the two of them regrouped Sasuke caught Sakura gingerly holding her right hand were blood trickled out of a relatively deep wound. She must have punched right into Sasuke's shuriken, probably driving the ninja tool deep into the creature's skull. Judging from the terrible sound, that was something between tortured child and dying cat, they had finally managed to deal some pretty serious damage. Though it came at a price. Sakura's effectiveness was down a whole ton.

The thing was moving again. It was running toward Naruto... no, toward the other body. Sasuke's mind raced. If he could assume that this thing was actually the demon that had been possessing the girl, Naruto some how managed to separate the two of them. In this form it was a whole lot weaker, than it had been possessing the girl. Faster, but it didn't hit nearly as hard. It was standing over the body of the girl now, lowering itself toward her face, shoving its fingers into her mouth.

"Don't let it get the body!" Sasuke shouted, leaping forward.

Obviously it took some time for it to possess a body, time that it couldn't be interrupted. Before Sasuke even got close, the demon stopped whatever it was doing and grabbed the body trying to make an escape. The extra weight however slowed it down, giving Sasuke enough time to catch up and head it off, getting between it and the infinite dark of the tunnel beyond.

The demon hissed and turned back, only to be met by Sakura rushing in with a kunai in her off hand. For the moment that seemed to deter the demon, which dropped the body and jumped over them into the darkness.

"Get the girl over to Cock-eye-sensei, in case it comes back."

There was no "in case" however, because even before they had managed to drag the body a couple feet the demon was back, clearly perturbed that they were trying to steal its home.

"Why. Don't. You. Just. Give. Up." Sasuke grunted slashing ineffectively at the demon, who had somehow learned to dodge in the past couple of seconds. His frustration getting the better of him Sasuke committed himself to a strong jab at the demon. Sensing it's opportunity the thing flowed around Sasuke's attack and smacked him hard with the back of its hand. Sasuke was caught off guard and fell to the ground. Suddenly he found himself pinned to the ground by the monster. It ground his hand into the stone. He felt his skin being scraped off his knuckle by the rough stone floor. The thing jabbed a knee into Sasuke's gut, expelling all the air in his lungs and surprising him enough to let go his grip on the kunai.

The thing's face flashed towards Sasuke's neck before it was deflected by a strong kick from Sakura. The thing still wouldn't let him go even after several hard curb stomps, but his teammate had given him enough time to get back into the fight. Curling up, Sasuke planted a foot into the things chest and kicked out. The thing went tumbling down the cave, right toward the body it had just been trying to retrieve.

Sakura didn't wait for Sasuke and rushed on ahead to harass the demon away from its former residence. Taking a second to right himself Sasuke followed behind her.

Sakura reached it first. Grabbing its arm she swung it about, right into another bloody punch. Unfortunately the blood was all hers. Mostly ineffective and painful for the wrong party, Sasuke took the moment to draw one of his remaining kunai and plunge it deep into the demon's chest with unfortunately predictable results. The blade buried several inches deep was just about as effective as Sakura's punch.

"Grab it!" Sakura suggested, holding tight to the demon's arm. Without pausing to consider why, Sasuke followed the order. With both it's arms held tight it tried lashing out with its feet. The attempt to free itself, however, ended up being more disastrous than helpful and it tumbled forward onto the bloody ground pulling two genin on top of it.

And so they reached something of an stalemate. The demon had neither the strength nor leverage to extricate itself from the genin, but Sasuke and Sakura were completely tied up keeping the thing from escaping. Even if Sasuke could both hold the demon down and form hand seals, at this close range none of his fire jutsu would be a good idea. They were more likely to burn him and his teammate than the demon. Stabbing it had proved wildly ineffective, plus Sasuke could feel he had only one blade left in his pouch. Sakura was holding on pretty well, but it was unlikely that she had any surprises that could get them out of this mess.

So that left them, for the moment, in a mess of limbs on the bloody ground, keeping the demon down. Sasuke had the sinking feeling that if it came down to a test of endurance, the demon would eventually get the upper hand.

"Sensei," Sakura cried out, "how do we kill it?"

"Hn. Well you don't."

"What?"

"You don't kill demons, Sakura."

"Of, course you don't," Sasuke grumbled fowley.

Cock-eye-sensei continued, "You exorcise them, and either seal them or wait for them to disappear. You really can't kill something that's not alive... at least not in the technical sense."

"So what do we do?"

"Oh, just hold it there until it de-corporates."

"Sensei?! Help!"

"You two seem to be handling things quite well. I wouldn't want to get in your way."

While Sakura bickered with their worthless sensei, Sasuke focussed on keeping the demon from slipping away. Under his breath he grumbled, "Damn it dweeb. The one time you stupid seals would have actually been useful, and you're out cold. Typical."

Almost like he had some kind of Sasuke's-wenching-about-me-senses, Naruto began hacking and coughing. After several very wet and painful sounding coughs, he wrasped, "Is it still here?"

"Yeah, it's still here. Couldn't even clean up your own mess could you dweeb?" Sasuke wasn't particularly sure why he was so frustrated with Naruto right now, but he was. And oddly enough that felt very normal, and since that was about the only normal part of this whole royally boned scenario, he must have latched on to it. It felt good to be ticked off at Naruto, so he allowed himself to indulge a little.

"Oh." Came Naruto's hollow reply. Dang it Naruto, now he had to go all weird too.

"Yeah. Sakura and I are holding it down until it apparently disappears or something, however long that takes, because someone has made it clear that he won't be helping."

"You wouldn't want me to deprive you of a great learning experience now would you?"

Sasuke was just about to reply and tell their sensei just what he thought about this whole learning experience and display some very matured language. Unfortunately for rant chroniclers everywhere, Sasuke had to grit his teeth and focus back on the task at hand as the demon made another particularly spirited attempt to escape.

"Naruto, if you had something for sealing away a demon, now would be the time!" Sasuke grunted, straining to keep ahold of their prisoner.

Naruto stayed silent.

Of course. Worthless dweeb. Incompetent, unprepared, loudmouth, bookworm...

"I think I can do something. Have you got it immobilized?"

"We've got it, but just barely." Sakura answered.

"Okay, keep restraining it, while I make some preparations."

"No, duh!" Sakura retorted.

"Rodger, just hurry, Naruto." Sasuke responded.

"I'm hurrying. You try thinking in the throws of hypovolemia... It's oddly refreshing actually. It's like there was this massive pounding in my head that I hadn't noticed until it was gone. My mind is so clear and cold. Maybe I should lose vast quantities of blood more oft-"

"FOCUS! Naruto!"

"Right."

Several agonizing minutes passed as Naruto whispered quietly to himself. Lifting himself up just a bit, Sasuke look over the demon's body and see Naruto waving his arms around in the flare light like he was some kind of madman.

"I think I got it." Naruto at last exclaimed holding up a kunai that for some reason looked slightly blue, "but you're both going to have to hold this and stab the demon with it."

"Alright, give it here." Sasuke wedged the arm underneath his knee so he could free on of his arms to grab the blade from his teammate.

"Okay, Catch!"

"Wait no-" Before Sasuke could point out what a fantastically dumb plan this was, Naruto had already let the blade go. It sailed high up into the air, tumbling gracefully in the darkness. It almost seemed to glow. It reached the top of its arc and then began its rapid descent towards the ground. It accelerated quickly, its sharp point racing. It clattered on the ground, dangerously close to the leg of one Uzumaki Naruto.

"Wow, that was the worst throw. Ever. Of all time."

"Hey, I don't know how much blood I'm working with here. I'm pretty sure if I tried walking and chewing bubble gum right now I die because there wouldn't be enough blood for my brain." Naruto retorted, "Sensei, you want to help?"

"Mmm. Nope."

"This is some kind of 'go beyond your limits and discover new potential" cockamamie isn't it?"

"Yep."

"Uhhg." Naruto sounded just about as disgusted as Sasuke felt with their teacher at the moment.

"I've made sure you weren't going to die, and based on my knowledge of your abilities and my observations of your opponent, I have every confidence you will be victorious."

"Do your calculations include how much blood I'm going to loose?"

"No, I'm going to let the be a surprize. If you'd like we could start taking bets."

"Well, I suppose you're not actively trying to kill us, so that puts you above some jounin-sensei," Naruto mumbled, "Alright, Sasuke we're going to try this again!"

"How about not throwing a deadly blade at us when you can't even see straight."

"Alright, Alright."

Naruto screamed with pain as he sat up. But he managed to pick up the blade and slide along the ground towards them. It didn't get nearly as close as Sasuke would have liked, but he thought he could work with this. He snaked his legs around the demon's arm and forced the arm into a position that, if the thing had been human, would have been very painful. It was mostly just inconvenient for the demon.

Stretching his arm out as far as he could Sasuke's finger tips just barely managed to brush against the Kunais edge.

Come on, come on, just a little bit more...

Bingo! Sasuke managed to hit the edge of the blade hard enough for the weapon to flip over, putting it easily in his grasp. He grabbed the chilly metal blade and sat up.

"Sakura!" He called. She rearranged herself so she could hold onto the kunai too. For a brief terrifying second it seemed like the demon might actually get free. It was thrashing and twisting much more wildly now, like it some how knew what was coming. It turned its neck so that the onix black eyes could see the blade grasped between the hands of Sasuke and Sakura. If it had eyelids it might have actually squeezed them shut in anticipation as the genin started to plunge the blade into its exposed back.

"Wait!" It took all of Sasuke's strength to cancel the momentum of their thrust when Naruto called out to him.

"You have to do it on my signal."

"That would have been nice to know before, Naruto!" Sakura growled.

"Sorry!"

Naruto winced as his hands clumsily ran through some hand seals. Then he slammed his hand against the bloody rocky ground. The cave suddenly shifted. For a moment Sasuke thought that the shadows had come alive, but no, now he noticed that the dark liquid that had been splashed all over the cavern was beginning to move in a very unnatural fashion. Some of the blood was actually creeping up over them. Kanji and other strange symbols began to form on his and Sakura's skin and all over the dark purple muscle of the demon.

Just as the shadowy liquid was slowing down Naruto called out, "Now!"

Together Sasuke and Sakura plunged the cold metal blade into the wildly struggling demon. It began jerking and twisting wildly, actually throwing them both off. As he tumbled away Sasuke felt the frustration well up in him like his fire jutsu. But when he came to rest and looked back at where the demon had been, he found that it was some how still there. Like a bug pinned into place, the demon flailed about, trying desperately to get away, but it could not.

The kunai was most definitely glowing now, a violent hungry violet. The strange bloody symbols were moving again. The ones on his skin, Sasuke noticed, had already disappeared. The words on the ground and walls were all being sucked toward the glowing blade like water down a sink. The demon was screaming again, just like the sound it had been making just before they had rescued Naruto.

The light from the glowing blade started to fade... No! The blade was sinking into the monster's flesh. Carefully Sasuke stood up. He could see the strange way that the dark flesh of the demon seemed to bubble and pop, and get sucked in, devoured by the hungry purple light. The creature imploded in slow motion, first the chest, then the head, and finally the bony arms and legs.

Finally the purple light really did start fading. The kunai clattered to the ground. Sasuke and Sakura approached. It looked pretty much like a normal Kunai, albeit with some odd designs etched into the metal. Sasuke reached down to pick it up when he stopped. The air around the blade stung. Pulling his hand back, Sasuke scolded himself: really? That blade had to be cursed or something now, touching it first thing was a truly awful idea.

"Naruto, get over he and make sure that you did it right."

"I can't exactly move very well, would you mind, uhh, bringing it over here?"

"I'm not touching that until I'm sure you didn't screw up."

"Fine, then help me get over there. Wimp."

Sakura rolled her eye and helped the last feeble bloody member of their team over to the blade. Naruto didn't seem to have any problems picking up the blade. Carefully he looked it over, "Nope, I think this right. I mean, when we get home I'm definitely putting it into something stronger, but this should definitely hold until then."

"Good." Sasuke nodded.

"He, Naruto. Where's Lord Izo?"

"Umm, I think he's back at the squeeze." Naruto looked about, trying to figure out where that was exactly.

"You left our client alone! He's probably dead by now."

"Hey, I did not leave him alone, I was grabbed by a possessed girl. I didn't have much choice in the mater. Besides, aside from the time that I was unconscious, I had eyes on him on the whole time. I mean I guess I didn't when I was being attacked, but there is no way she could have hurt him."

"Right. Aside from the time you were unconscious. That's real reassuring Naruto! Plus, even if the demon didn't get him I sure there are about a thousand other things in this cave that could have killed him!" Sakura, must have thought they were all safe at this point because she started off on one of her shrill ear splitting rants. "Like spiders or scorpions or snakes or bats or he could have fallen and hit his head..."

Sasuke did not abandon his teammate to at terrible chewing out, nor did he flee to protect his ears. He just had better things to do than stick around. He just hadn't thought of them yet. Let's see, he could try finding Lord Izo. Yeah, that's what he could do! Even if he was dead, they should probably bring back the remains so that he could rest in peace. Though on the other hand, he never let anyone around him have any peace so maybe...

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

It didn't take them particularly long to find Lord Izo's unconscious and most certainly not dead body. Unfortunately someone had the bright idea to wake him up. Sakura felt no remorse for the wounded and expressed her displeasure with Naruto in her standard mannar. Which only made Naruto complain even more as he had to be carried around. He didn't seem to have broken any bones and was already making a miraculous recovery. Cock-eye-sensei had gotten straight to bandaging up Naruto as soon as they had gotten there, so now, aside from his head which felt like it was full of helium, we was mostly okay. Izo was perfectly able to walk, even if he complained about it. There was, however, one body left.

The girl wasn't dead. By all respects she should have been. She was so skinny she put twigs to shame and her skin was so pale it was a shade of blue. Sasuke helped Naruto over to her and he bent down. Carefully Naruto checked her pulse. He felt her heart beating rapidly underneath her delicate skin. Slightly at first her body began to shiver, but soon the shaking turned into spastic flailing.

He didn't know her. He had just been inventing stories inside his head about her, right? But Naruto felt a clammy stone forming in his gut.

"Naruto, are you... crying?" Sakura asked quietly as she knelt down beside them.

He tried to swallow back the stinging tears, but it seemed he had completely lost control. Suddenly, acting on the nearest scrap of an idea he leaned forward. Opening the girls lips and pressing his mouth against hers he tried forcing air down her throat. He vaguely recalled a lesson in the academy about something like this. Wasn't it suppose to help people who couldn't breath, like when they had drowned? Well in his hallucinations, when he thought he had been the girl before being possessed, it had felt like they couldn't breath, like they were drowning in the darkness.

Over the pounding of blood in his ears, Naruto could almost hear Sakura trying to say something to him. Almost. He had to hold the girl tightly to keep her from thrashing out of his grip. He could feel bruises forming on his lips. Was she shaking worse? Of was he starting to shake too?

Someone was trying to pull him away. Shouting shrill at him. NO! He couldn't stop, not till she was okay. She needed air, oxygen. That's why she was turning blue and bluer under him.

More hands joined. Pulling him. Strong hands wrenched him from her. Then his muscles, despite mostly working through blood loss and battle and fear, turned to quivering jello. He shook and shivered like the arctic was devouring him.

Move! His brain commanded. MOVE! It shouted again with growing panic as more and more of his body stopped working. The problem was even parts of his brain were slinking off to go hid in a soft dark corner away from everything else. Trapped inside his own body, he watched as Kakashi picked up the tiny, fragile girl and took her away.

Some logical part of Naruto's mind, that cold heartless bastard part of his brain, knew what Sensei was doing. He was taking her away, where his could mercifully save her—kill her—away from their young eyes. He was glad he didn't have to see her die, but imagining it was almost worse.

"Miyako," the name slipped from his lips without him even realizing it. That was the girls name. He didn't know how he knew that. The same way he had seen all those things in his hallucination. And they were all true. Somehow he knew that all those things were true.

"Naruto, it's okay." Sakura softly put a hand on his trembling arm.

"I couldn't help her."

"What? Naruto, there was nothing you could have done."

"I know." Naruto sobbed, "I know that. I know that I shouldn't feel bad. But I do! I couldn't save her! She died because I couldn't do anything."

Sakura was trying to be comforting, she really was. She wasn't used to this kind of Naruto at all. Even when that librarian had died, she hadn't seen him cry. Sure he had gotten moody and quiet, but that was about someone he had known for practically all his life. This was just some random girl, who had tried to kill him even. "Naruto," she cooed quietly, "You did everything you could, I'm sure. But she lost her humanity along time ago. You don't need to feel guilty about this."

The anger actually came before the memory. For a second he didn't know where this new and powerful emotion had overwhelmed him so completely had come from. But then he remembered something else he had learned in the hallucinations brought on by the darkness.

Maybe that was why he felt so connected to the little girl.

In one way they were the same.

His brain, low on blood as it was, couldn't handle the anger and betrayal and hurt that Sakura's words stirred up in him. The guilt and grief had already filled up his emotional cup to overflowing. So many strong emotions—

He was just like her

—were pounding in his head—

demons in them both

—his body couldn't take it—

lost her humanity long ago

—he was boiling out of control—

what did that make him?

—

Naruto toppled forward and met the darkness rushing in.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"And there were no further complication on the return journey?" Danzo asked.

Penguin-san the ANBU shook his head.

Sarutobi leaned back in his chair and took a heavy drag from his pipe. In the darkness Penguin-san couldn't see his leader's expression. Well he could have, but that would have been very rude and required chakra... which was liable to get him killed in this high security room. Admittedly Penguin-san wasn't exactly part of the folks-in-high-places-that-hate-each-other loop, but even he found it a little weird that he was reporting to both of people that he was acting at a double agent for. (What did that make him a quadruple agent? A double-double agent? He didn't know) And that these two kage level rivals were having a nice cup of highly poisoned tea as he reported to them.

"What was his behavior like on the way back? Did you notice any signs of psychological trauma?" Sarutobi asked.

"Hokage-sama" Danzo stuffed the word with patronizing care, "is that really important? The boy is a ninja, he's going to be traumatized a lot in his life. He might benefit from some conditioning early on."

"We're not going to agree on this and we never will. I will not raise a village of emotionless automatons as ninja. A healthy mind is important both to operational effectiveness and standby safety. Look, the boy has just been exposed to an existence which he might very well have taken as a mirror of his own. Additionally, as Penguin has reported, he fainted after clearly suffering from a panic attack. I want to make sure that there is no further damage to his psyche."

"You are right, we won't agree. Penguin, continue your report."

"Naruto-kun, did seem very subdued on the return journey. I noticed no more panic attacks and he slept soundly at nights. However he spoke very little and tended to stand away from Sakura, a marked difference from his normal behavior."

"Hmm." Sarutobi took a long draw from his pipe, "I fear there may be more going on they we can see right now."

"You could let me take him down to my place and train him. I could help solve a lot of those invisible problems."

"Forgive me if I don't take you up on your generous offer."

"As long as the boy is being used effectively I will forgive you." What when unstated was 'And if he's not I'll take him anyway."

"And whose determining what is effective?" Unsaid was, 'I will end you if you try.'

"I'm sure you could set up a committee." The hidden answer was: 'Certainly not you, you inefficient old coot.'

"I might do that. The problem is I can only think of people ill suited for the task at the moment." The petty dart in his tart reply was: 'Oh yeah? Well I know who your confederates are, and they're all dispicable people."

"I expect we're thinking of some of the same people." It was a little difficult to tell if that actually meant, 'I know your friends are but what are mine,' or 'unfortunately I have agree with you there, good help is so hard to come by these days.'

Penguin-san the ANBU thought he caught most of the conversation happening underneath the underneath but from this point on their jabs started accruing too many subtle layers for him to keep track of. It was like they were having three different conversations at once. Suffice to say, when ninja's turned political they got scary.

"Well," Danzo finally returned to the matter at hand, "the important thing is that the boy is alive. It looks as if this mission has given him some well needed experience." Then Danzo rose from his seat and made his way to the door. As he opened it, he stopped and turned back toward Penguin-san. "Out of curiosity, who lost the little bet that the team had?"

"Naruto, sir. He did not bring any clothes besides the outfit he wore."

"Really?"

"I do not think that he owns another set of mission suitable cloths."

"Hmm. I appears this folly has brought even more benefit that I could have hope for, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi leaned over his desk and looked at his old rival with honest confusion.

"It's a lot harder to hit somebody who's not wearing target-me-orange."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Amongst people who could be classified as "not wearing orange," Uzumaki Naruto was now the primer member. After years of hard work, enticing recruitment drives, subtle and obvious threats, and on occasion bodily harm the orangeless forces had finally converted their prize target to the not-orange side. However, in a sickening twist of fate that offended the decency of any fashion capable member of society it seemed that the army of the green spandex had moved in on this prime piece of real estate with terrifying speed.

"ERRRRNT." Sakura cried, crossing her arms in an sharp "X." Sasuke just shook his head and tried to sink deeper into the late morning shadows. Unfortunately for the brooder extraordinaire, the morning shadows were pretty shallow and he had already been pushing it.

"No! No. No. No. No. No. That is not acceptable Naruto!"

"Yeah, I'm not exactly thrilled about this either, Sakura, but for the immediate future were both going to have to persevere, until I can get something that doesn't ride up all the wrong places." Naruto pause to adjust the elastic fabric, "Which if you're wondering is everywhere."

"Naruto," Sasuke emerged a little from his pretty poor hiding spot, "I normally think you look ridiculous, but this..."

"Oh, no. I fully admit that this is a new low, and most of my clothes have come out of the trash."

"Why did you even..." Sakura brain having a lot of trouble just accepting the reality of this situation, because honestly it was a whole lot more likely that this was just some dream.

"Look, I didn't have much of a choice. For a while now every morning at about 5 I get transported to a remote training area to go through morning exercises with greenaldee and grennaldum. Hon-san's seal also dresses me, unfortunately I had to throw out most of my cloths because they were either rags unfit for beggars, or encrusted with so much blood they cracked when I move. So yesterday when I poofed like normal, I poofed in my underwear. So my options were put on the spandex given to me, or train with Guy-sensei and Bushy-brows in our underwear. I picked the spandex."

"But you just got paid, why don't you go buy some cloths?"

"Because I– hold on. Sasuke..." As he turned toward his teammate, he noticed his fellow genin trying to disappear with desperate nonchalant. "Something's different about you."

Sasuke didn't answer. Sakura did. "Oh yeah, don't they make him look so cool and refined."

"Oh those are two words that you can choose to describe them."

"I don't want to hear it dweeb."

"But I haven't said anything yet, four-eyes."

"There, you just said something."

"Oh, I guess I did." The phrase "fox-like grin" has perhaps never been more accurately applied to a being not actually a fox that it right now: a giddy fox-like grin crept its way across Naruto's face. "I'm just glad I'm not the only one who suffered from this mission. But in all seriousness, what is with the glasses?"

Sasuke fidgeted with the new pair of glasses. "Nothing."

"What, finally got a doctor who was willing to admit that the almighty Uchiha eyes could be less than perfect?"

"I think they look great on you Sasuke." Sakura didn't catched the tremendous eye roll Naruto performed, which is a shame because as a well practiced eye roller and connoisseur of the art she really would have appreciated it. It was a marvelous expression, his eyebrows moved in perfect sink to the long and perfectly executed arc of his eyes which lingered for just a second at the one o'clock position, expertly conveying exasperation and annoyance. But what really set this apart from your standard eye roll was the way Naruto used his whole face to highlight his preformance. In the olympic art of eye rolling there is no doubt this would have gotten solid 8s all around.

"For your information, yes. I had this white hair glasses wearing freak who just obsessed over my eyes. He wasn't interested in anything else, like things that actually could have been damaged during the mission, my mental state for instance."

"Okay, I get that's a jab at me. Well played. But really you need glasses?"

"Aparently it's easier to hit targets when they're not kinda fuzzy."

"Is this new? Because even I have to admit you had the best accuracy in our class; it was like you had something against dead wood or something."

Sasuke shrugged, "I knew where the targets were."

"And the moving targets?"

"It wasn't hard to guess."

"Sasuke, that's so awesome!"

"This revelation about your actual ability is disturbing on several different levels. And disheartening on quite a few more." Naruto sighed and then looked around. Normally this would the the part of the show where sensei comes out to demand a silly chore. He remained conspicuously absent. "Hey, you guys wouldn't have..."

"Happen to see cock-eye sensei anywhere? I was just about to ask you." Sakura said.

"Yeah, he's not coming to day," said a deep grovely voice. The voice gave the distinct impression that its owner had grown up smoking cigars and drinking whisky instead of pacifiers and breast milk.

Wide eyed Naruto and Sakura looked around. Only Sasuke and his best "I could care less, but that would actually require more effort because I would have to go negative" expression was to be seen.

It looked like Sakura was having trouble deciding what she thought of Sasuke's new straight from the chain saw voice.

"Wow, Sasuke," Naruto fought desperately to hold back the giggles, "puberty hits like a truck, doesn't it?"

"You're an idiot." Sasuke said with his very normal just on the edge of an emo, emo puberty voice.

"But you heard that too? Right?"

"Nope. You're going crazy." It took quite a bit of familiarity with Sasuke to be able to distinguish amongst his expressions. They were "subtle" as Sakura liked to put it. It made him "mysterious." Naruto, who had occasion to see Sasuke actually have some real expressions, thought it made him "as dull as a sheet of pale pasty paper." Which went a ways in explaining his desire to draw all over his perfect complexion. That all being said, the nearly microscopic twitch along the corner of his mouth was clear indication he was joking. Heck as far as Sasuke expressions went he was practically wearing a goofy grin.

"Aww, that's a cute little dog."

Naruto and Sasuke looked down in response to Sakura's fawning. Cute was a word. The dog was little. But it took just a little too much effort for Naruto to connect those two facts for his liking.

"Woof," the dog said pawing at Sakura's leg. And there was something about that struck Naruto as being rather odd. But it was a dog and dogs go woof, so then why did he feel...

"Hey, what's this." Sakura bent down and pulled a piece of paper out of the leash scrunched up over the dogs head.

"It's from sensei." Sakura looked over the letter, "he says we have the day to train by ourselves."

"Lazy bastard." Sasuke swore, not quite under his breath.

"In that case, Naruto. Come on where getting you some new clothes." Sakura violently grabbed Naruto's arm and started dragging him off towards the shopping district.

Naruto however struggled against her and finally wrenched his arm from her grasp. "Thanks Sakura, but no. Ummm. I have a standing invitation to train with Team Eight, and they got back from a mission while we were gone. So I thought, uh, I'd stop by and hear about it. Thanks for the offer." Naruto finished lamely looking away from his teammate.

Sakura was caught completely flat footed. While she was still processing Naruto's rejection he jumped away from their meeting place.

"Did he just-" Sakura turned to her crush sputtering, "I can't believe he– was that really Naruto?"

Sasuke shrugged, "Just be glad he's not hanging on to you all the time."

He started walking off towards their training ground. Sasuke looked over his at Sakura, the morning light glinting off the edge of his new glasses. "Hey, come on. I want so see how far these things can increase my range."

A smile broke through the clouds of confusion and Sakura rushed after him.

The transformation technique puffed away and the ninja dog watched his summoners

0o0o0o0o0o0

Kurenai Yuhi was not a sensing specialist. That fact might seem a little odd when put next to the team of genin that she had been given, because every member of her team was, or at least had the potential to be a fantastic sensor. Kiba, for his warish nature, had developed extremely acute olfactory senses even when compared to the others in his clan. Where others trained beside their ninja canine partners and developed incredible bonds of trust and friendship, Kiba had gone beyond them. Akimaru and the boy were more that inseparable, they were brothers. Kiba tried his hardest to be like his older brother. Yes, Akimaru was actually three weeks older than the human, it had surprised her too. Hinata was a Hyuga, there was no denying her uses as a sensing ninja. And Shino, at least under her tutelage was revealing a sisable talent for sensing chakra even without the aid of his "companions." She just had to get the stoic little brat to speak up when ever he noticed something.

No Kurenai was an infiltration and genjutsu specialist. She was a god when it came to hide and seek, as long as she was the one hiding. Seeking she was below average for a Jonin. So it cause her no small amount of consternation when, several months ago, she had been given a team of seekers and instructions to train them as such. But, since they were orders for The Professor, the God of Shinobi, the Hokage, she hadn't questioned them. So for her little "test" she played hide and seek with them.

They didn't find her.

But they tried astoundingly hard, refused to give up (even after the time limit), and worked very well together. Kurenai hadn't even been trying very hard, there were lots of gaps and signs she left for them to find. Just to make it more fair. So when they missed them, she at least had an idea where to start.

Now, after several months with her adorable little team, she had come to understand the Hokage's logic. It was reasonable for someone like her to teach talented sensors, just a little counter intuitive. She knew how to hide and all the little tricks that made disappearing easier, better. She just had to betray all the other hiders in the world and teach the seekers how to notice them.

And she found that her own skill in that regard was improving as well. That being said, it didn't take much skill at all to feel the massive chakra signature approaching presently.

"Sensor check," she cried out from her hiding spot. It was kind of a little game that they had begun on their C-ranked mission after Hinata had revealed she had proximity sensing seals from Naruto. She would call out at random times, when they were walking, eating, sleeping and they had to use their innate chakra sense, compare it to their individual talents and report their findings to Kurenai, who would check it against her own sense and Naruto's seals. In all everybody's accuracy improved quite a bit during the mission. The game had even come to save their bacon when they detected some rogue ninja closing in on their position. The rogues turned out to be no better than genin, but they still didn't get the jump on her Team 8.

This time most of them were able to roughly identify their teammates location, were clueless about where she was, and surprisingly able to easily identify Uzumaki-kun even though he was quite a ways away.

"Nobody smells like Naruto." Kiba had explained.

"Why? Because my colony has become familiar with Uzumaki's chakra since he has helped in our sorting rooms." Shino said staring intently at a small bug on his finger.

Hinata merely blushed, which Kurenai understood. She was well aware of her infatuation with the boy, so she was probably quite aware of how his chakra felt.

It seemed that Uzumaki-kun was headed in their direction. She was thinking about the rumors that she had overheard concerning the boy's most recent mission when she was reminded of the declaration that he had made when he had begun occasionally training with her team. This would be the perfect opportunity to test if he could overcome, or even notice, an illusion he was not expecting. So she quietly slipped away from her team, trusting them to continue on without her, if they even noticed she was gone at all.

Slipping into the dark foliage above the boy she observed him carefully for several seconds. He hadn't noticed her. Good. Carefully she molded a subtle and powerful illusion. From previous experience she had learned that the boy's chaotic chakra made it impossible forweaker illusions to take hold and his surprisingly keen mind caught most crudely made illusions. It felt like a little bit of overkill to use this particular genjutsu on a genin, but he was the kid who wanted to be immune to all genjutsu. Beside, the kid enjoyed overkill.

Preparations complete, Kurenai began the delicate process of slipping her molded chakra into her target's system and melding it in with his own. Carefully, so that he wouldn't notice the intrusion she released the chakra in a diffuse misty wave. As soon as she felt his chakra system through the mystic feedback her technique provided, she began searching for a foot hold. She thought she found one and began worming her way into the boy when he suddenly slowed his pace and began looking around.

There was no way he could have actually detected that, Kurenai thought, but to be safe she pulled back. She waited for another gap in his attention to appear. It took much longer than she had anticipated for her to find a foothold in the boy's chakra than she expected. Even though it wasn't a particularly good connection she began trying manipulating her intended sensation into the boys senses. Suddenly the latent chakra circulating through the boy's body went ridged. So did the boy's body. He definitely noticed her now. He'd dispelled the genjutsu too.

No. The genjutsu was still active. He hadn't scrambled his chakra or "starved" the illusion by suppressing his chakra. Her structures were still moving around in his system, they just weren't sticking to anything. If she were a lesser master of genjutsu and if he were better at hiding the rigidity of his chakra he might be able to fool someone into thinking the genjutsu had taken hold when it had done no such thing.

That kind of awareness and control escaped the grasp of all save the most talented or diligent ninja. A mere genin achieving it was impossible. No. Kurenai smile ruefully, it wasn't. Ninja who denied reality with words born from pride and expectation, words like "impossible" or "inconceivable" seldom remained ninja for long. Usually because they no longer met the most important qualification, namely a beating heart. Somehow Uzumaki-kun had reached that level. If she thought about it he had been developing it for quite a while.

Something must have happened on the mission, she figured, some revelation had shown light on details of his unique chakra that she could never hope to impersonate.

Well damn, the kid was well on his way to making good on his threat and becoming every genjutsu users worst nightmare.

If they survived the ringer she wanted to put him through he would be terrifying. Because, hey it would totally be worth the bragging rights to train the first ninja completely immune to genjutsu. So many bragging rights. Oh so worth it.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Naruto slumped into the chair, the weight of the day threatened to splinter the chair's legs. He had been smiling all day, or as near to a smile as he could make. His mouth seemed broken, it wouldn't stop smiling.

No, Naruto was afraid to stop smiling. The broken smile was the only thing keeping everything else from breaking.

Tomorrow would come too soon, he decided, to stay much longer here. Just like yesterday at the hospital and today with Team 8 and the business he had to take care of for the library, tomorrow was going to be full. Training and missions and studying– maybe he should get some new clothes tomorrow. Spandex was not very comfortable. Maybe he could get Ino to help. He knew she didn't particularly like him, but he hadn't heard of her turning anyone down if they wanted to be her dress up doll.

Maybe, just for fun, he would read another chapter in the book on summons that he had been working on before they left. Or what about the scroll on blood style...

Naruto was already jamming his head full of things to think about. Full enough that there was always something new to ponder. So that he didn't have to think about small helpless girls, or demons, or pits and stars, or...

What he was.

No, there were too many other things to think about. He would have no time for such depressing and unproductive thoughts.

Besides, even though they had been delayed a little, the chunin exams were coming up and he wanted to impress Cock-eye sensei enough to let him participate with Team 7.

No time, no time.

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Onyx: And there we have it! The end of this second arc of the Librarian Chronicles! Unfortunately it seems that I can't go faster than one chapter every three months. However, if you want chapters faster, reviews are definitely the way to go about that. Any review helps. It helps new readers find this little work and it helps me have the energy and motivation to write more.

Crazy: Tell him you want more of us! We're dying back here, DYING!

Onyx: Oh, hush. I have plans for you three.

Psycho: Good plans?

Deadpan:Good plan, as in plans not to harm us plans to give us a future and hope? Yeah right, this is Onyx here, he's probably hoping to go GRRM on us here.

Onyx: that's not entirely false.

Onyx: regardless of silly fractures of Naruto's personality, it has been fun writing this for a good three years now. I do plan to continue this, but expect me to put my own special twist on everything. A particular thank you to the extremely kind reviewers who really pushed me to finish this up.


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